By the end of 2010, two million mu (133,000 hectares) of mulberry plantations will be developed in west China away from the traditional hometown of China's mulberry silk industry in the east, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) has announced.

Huang Hai, Assistant Minister of Commerce, said that China launched the project to develop mulberry plantations and a silk industry in west China this year.

Output in China's east had dropped from 51 percent in 2000 to 41 percent in 2005 due to industrial growth and a drop in cropland.

The project, the biggest-ever move by the Chinese government to develop the mulberry silk industry, aimed to optimize the industrial structure in the east, upgrade conditions in central China and strengthen the development of the mulberry silk industry in the west.

Huang said the MOC had ratified mulberry bases in 15 provinces and regions in central and west China.

By the end of 2010, China's pod output would rise by 2 to 3 percent to 870,000 tons, accounting for 75 percent of the world's total.

East China's Jiangsu Province, a major base for China's silk industry, has seen the establishment of 30,000 mu (2000 hectares) of mulberry plantations in west China's Guizhou Province and Chongqing Municipality as well as north China's Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.

Low labor and resource costs and preferential policies for investment in west China were the major incentives, said experts.

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