The China Meat Association says China has become the world's leading meat producer, with 29% of total global output last year. Xinhua says China's meat production last year topped 72.69 million tons, up 6% from the previous year. Of the total, 63.5% was pork, which means nearly half of the world's pork last year was produced in China.

A major consumer of meat products, importing 1.84 million tons and exporting only 742,000 tons last year, China expects global meat consumption to expand by almost 2% annually from now to 2018 to more than 320 million tons. Of that, 37.5% is expected to be pork.