(Yicai Global) Oct. 23 -- China is now a major importer and consumer of dairy products. Its dependence on foreign sources was near 30 percent by the end of last year andthough per capita intake is only one-third the world average, high overall consumption has brought an indraft of capital into the sector.

The country's milk market logged sales of CNY375 billion (USD54 billion) last year, almost fivefold the figure for 2007, Zhou Zhenfeng, deputy secretary of the Dairy Association of China, told Tencent news media at the China Dairy Industry Capital Forum in Beijing yesterday, adding dairy imports were 15 million tons, while overall consumption was 54 million tons.

The countryis gradually recovering from the 2008 milk scandal when infant formulacontaminated with the toxic industrial chemicalmelaminesickenedhundreds of thousands of babies, killing six.Itled to life imprisonmentforthe general manager of a dairy company and the shuttering ofseveralprocessing centers.

Ten yearson,thedairy tradeisstillstruggling towin backconsumertrust.The sampling qualifying rate of domestic infant formula milk powder has reached more than 99 percentin the past three years.The pass rate of dairy products was 99 percent last year, while that of baby formula was 99.5 percent, Zhou noted.

Editor: Ben Armour