China plans world's biggest 'animal cloning factory'

China is planning to open the world's biggest "animal cloning factory" next year, producing dogs, horses and over a million beef cattle a year.

Although the primary function of the Boyalife centre will be to produce livestock for farming, the £21m plant will also clone racehorses and family pets. The facility will bring the science of cloning "closer to the mainstream", say Chinese state media.

With the price of meat having tripled in the past 15 years and Chinese farmers struggling to provide enough beef for the country's rapidly growing middle class, agricultural biotechnology is seen as a solution to plug the shortfall.

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A joint venture by Chinese and South Korean biotechnology companies, the centre will offer to clone family pets for $100,000 each.

The announcement is expected to be condemned by animal welfare activists in Europe, where the cloning of livestock for farming was banned in September.

Renate Sommer, the European Parliament's environment committee co-rapporteur, criticised the technique two months ago for not being "fully mature".

She said the mortality rate remains high, with many of the animals that are born alive dying in the first few weeks and dying "painfully".

But Xu Xiaochun, chairman of BoyaLife, dismissed such concerns. "Let me ask one question. Was this ban based on scientific rationale or ethical rationale or political agenda?" he told the Daily Telegraph.

"Legislation is always behind science. But in the area of cloning, I think we are going the wrong way and starting to kill the technology."