Chen Guilan, a middle-aged woman from a village in northwest China's Gansu Province, said she felt better both physically and spiritually after eating special nutrition flour for half a year.

Promulgated by the Chinese government as a trial program to improve rural people's nutrition, the flour, fortified with vitamins and minerals, has enabled more than 30,000 farmers like Chen to benefit from nutritious food for the first time in their life.

However, consuming nutritious food has gradually become routine among more and more well-off Chinese citizens in recent years, bringing a new nutrition sector into being.

According to an industrial index released here Tuesday, China's nutrition sector is growing prosperously and has bright prospects, seeing a strong demand for nutritional products and investment enthusiasm in 2005.

The nutrition industry index, the first of its kind in China, was published by the Center for Public Nutrition and Development (PNDC) under the State Development and Reform Commission after interviewing 100 enterprises on their businesses in the last five years.

Of the four subsidiary indexes of sales, demand, investment andpolicy making, the market demand tops others at 192.3, approachingthe limit of 200, which was followed by the enterprise investment index of 176.9.

Unofficial statistics showed that about 38 percent of Chinese have consumed nutritious products and 85 percent are willing to have a try.

The Chinese, famous for their multi-thousand-year tradition of maintaining good health, are beginning to pay more attention to life quality after bidding farewell to poverty.

Zhang, a retired man in Beijing, keeps watching TV programs about cooking, saying he wants a healthier diet.

He takes nutrition foods made of honey regularly, which costs about one fifth of his monthly pension.

"I dance with my friends for about four hours every day but never feel tired," said the old man, who will soon celebrate his 70th birthday.

However, the prosperous nutrition market also reflects the severe challenges facing Chinese people -- nutrition deficiencies and unbalanced nutrition structure, experts say.

"Nutrition deficiencies coexist in the poverty-stricken and well-off regions in China, and the rate of malnutrition has kept soaring in recent years," said Dr. Chai Weizhong with the PNDC.

Official statistics released in 2004 showed that over 200 million Chinese suffered anemia and 60 million were obese. Over 160 million people were stricken by high blood pressure and 20 million others suffered from diabetes.

Proper nutrition will lead to a higher quality of life of and contribute to the effect of disease prevention, which is a feasible way to reduce waste of social resources, said Chai, also a member of the team on the state program of improving public nutrition.

It has been reported that China spent 420 billion yuan (about 52 billion US dollars) in the treatment of nutrition-triggered diseases in 2003, five times of that a decade ago.

However, scientific nutrition guidance would have helped to reduce 700 billion yuan (86.4 billion US dollars) concerning food and environment cost and medical expense, experts estimated.

A report released Tuesday by PNDC at the ongoing China Nutrition Industry Forum here said the scale of the burgeoning sector reached 120 billion yuan (14.8 billion US dollars) last year and is expected to hit 278 billion yuan (34.4 billion US dollars) by 2010 based on the 15 percent growth rate.

"China has such a huge market, we are very optimistic about thefuture of the nutrition industry," said Zhou Jianlie, medical manager with the Wyeth Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd in Shanghai.

Doctor Zhou suggested that the government should take the responsibility to educate the people with nutrition science and knowledge, support and regulate the development of enterprises, and protect consumers' rights, which will lead to the sustainable growth of the "sun-rising" industry.

The government has been called on to integrate the public nutrition and health program into its 11th Five Year (2006-2010) Plan in an effort to make every Chinese get sufficient nutrition from a sound industry.

Source: Xinhua