Food sector to boom despite slower economic growth

China's food industry will continue to experience steady and healthy growth inthe coming years against the backdrop of a sluggish economy, according to an industryanalyst.

Xiong Bilin, vice president of the China National Food Industry Association, made the remarksThursday at a food expo held in central China's Henan Province, the country's most populatedadministrative district.

Despite the country's lackluster overall industrial performance, he forecast that the sector willgrow at a relatively rapid pace in the next five to 10 years, and he projected that the industrialoutput value will exceed 10 trillion yuan ($1.61 trillion) in 2013.

The industrial output of the food sector jumped 21.7 percent year on year to almost 9 trillionyuan last year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Consumption capacity released by advancing urbanization and enormous potential in foodprocessing enterprises will provide major impetus to the sector's boom, he said.

In 2012, the country's urban population increased to 712 million, 52.57 percent of China's totalpopulation, NBS data shows.

Xiong said he believes demand for food will be driven high, as the central government hastargeted urbanization as another economic engine and an array of measures have been rolledout to more efficiently promote progress in this regard.

He also noted that if Chinese enterprises further intensify their efforts in deep food processingdevelopment, which has great room for improvement compared to that of developed countries,the profit ratio in the food sector would rise.

However, Xiong also admitted that more work is needed in industrial integration andmechanization.