China is prudent in developing genetically modified (GM) farm produce but it will keep working in bio-engineering for agriculture, said an agricultural official at a forum on food safety held in Harbin on Saturday.

Luo Bin, deputy director of Farm Produce Quality Safety Center under the Ministry of Agriculture, said that China has developed over 100 varieties of GM farm produce, but the ministry has only allowed five categories of them to go on market, which are soybean, corn, oil-seed rape, cotton and tomato.

"The development, production and sales of GM farm produce are very strictly controlled in China, " said Luo at the International Forum on the Safety of Farm Produce held in this capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

The most widely planted GM product in China is cotton. The country has 8 million ha of farmland under over 30 varieties of cotton crops modified with anti-pest genes, since they were first introduced to farmers in 1998.

The growing of GM cotton helped reduce the use of pesticides by 50,000 tons, bringing about economic returns of 16.8 billion yuan (US$2.1 billion), said Luo.

(Xinhua News Agency June 19, 2006)