Forestry police in south China's Guangdong Province seized 595 kg of illegally sold ivory products at an antique market in Guangzhou, capital of the province earlier this week, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) announced Wednesday.
  
The products were worth about 25 million yuan (US$3 million), including carvings, chopsticks and necklaces. They were found at seven antique shops on Monday and Tuesday in an intensive inspection, said Zhang Libao, an official with the Public Security Bureau for Forestry under SFA.
  
Zhang said China joined the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1981 and it bans any international trade on ivory and ivory products since 1991.
  
Since CITES conditionally allowed ivory trade in 1997, smugglers have gradually focused on China as a good ivory market and smuggling has increased in some coastal areas of China, said Zhang.
  
The Chinese government has intensified the crackdown on ivory smuggling and over the past seven years, police have cracked more than 300 cases and seized over 40 tons of ivory products, he said.
  
In order to protect elephants, which enjoy top-level protection, China has also launched special projects to supervise and prevent poaching and illegal trading of elephant products, said Wan Ziming, an official with the State Administrative Office on Endangered Species Import and Export.

(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2004)