China has decided to limit its saccharin market to five companies that will control the production and sale of the non-fattening substitute for sugar this year.

The State Economic and Trade Commission has said that nine other saccharin plants have been shut down or diverted to other industries, according to China Daily's report on February 25.

The moves are part of an effort to curb saccharin production to help China's slumping sugar industry, the report says.

Over the past four years, China's sugar industry lost ten billion yuan (1.2 billion U.S. dollars) because of price dropping on the domestic market.

Industry insiders attribute the price fall in part to mounting production and the widening use of saccharin in food and beverages in recent years.

To help sugar producers, less than 3,000 tons of saccharin will be allowed onto the domestic market this year, said officials with the State Administration of Petroleum and Chemical Industries, which oversees saccharin production.

Chinese saccharin producers will be urged to look more at overseas markets.

The five companies that will control the saccharin market will produce less than 16,000 tons of saccharin this year, compared with more than 20,000 tons in 1999.

Meanwhile, the sugar industry is seeking to keep production under 7.5 million tons this year to stabilize prices on the domestic market. Sugar producers plan to close 143 small plants this year to meet the target.