China contributes 10% of world's new plant varieties in past decade: white paper

BEIJING - China has contributed up to 10 percent of the new plant varieties identified worldwide in the past decade, according to a white paper released Friday by the State Council Information Office.

In this period, the country has identified about 200 new varieties of plants per annum, said the white paper titled "Biodiversity Conservation in China."

To strengthen the supervision of biogenetic resources, China has conducted surveys on essential biogenetic resources and conservation performance evaluations, which aimed to identify the scale, distribution, conservation and utilization of these resources, it said.