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China, the world's biggest rice producer and consumer, has become a world leader in rice research, said experts attending the International Rice Congress which opened in Beijing recently.

Shen Guofang, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that from 1996 to 2000, China's planting area of rice accounted for 20 percent of the world's total, second only to India, and China's annual average output accounted for 35.26 percent of the world's total, the highest in the world.

China was well-known for its high-yield semi-dwarf varieties, the per hectare output of which was approximately 30 percent higher than traditional varieties. China was also the first country to cultivate hybrid rice in large areas, a fundamental innovation in rice planting.

China kept ahead in bio-technology as well, where Chinese scientists had accomplished the construction of the rice genome map and the mapping of the Indica rice genomic working frame sequence chart, which would facilitate research into rice and other crops on molecular-biological levels.