China issued a total of 2.7 billion organic product labels last year, the country's top market watchdog said Monday.

The country sold 999,000 tonnes of organic products in 2020, with sales standing at 80.43 billion yuan (about $12.47 billion), an increase of 18.6 percent compared with 2019 and ranking the fourth globally, according to the State Administration for Market Regulation.

To date, China has granted 14,000 companies nationwide more than 22,000 certificates for their organic products, the regulator said.

It added that the number of issued certificates grew by 13.52 percent on average each year between 2016 and 2020.

The administration said measures will be adopted to ramp up market regulation and expose illegal cases to target irregularities in the organic product market.

The 14th Five-Year Plan requires strengthening organic product certification management, as organic product certification is an important work in building a quality certification system. It is an effective way to increase the income of rural industries and drive rural green development.

From 2013 to 2019, the market size of the organic food industry increased from 27.98 billion yuan to 67.82 billion yuan. Under favorable conditions such as national macro-policy support, the promotion of rural e-commerce, and the continuous improvement of consumers' requirements for food quality, the market size of China's organic food will continue to maintain a steady growth trend. It is expected to reach 98.9 billion yuan in 2023, according to research provider Qianzhan.

(With input from Xinhua)