As Chinese become more wealthy and beauty-conscious, its cosmetics market is surging and cosmetic chemistry has emerged as a new profession in China.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Security on April 25 approved cosmetic chemistry as a new profession and said China had 60,000 chemists working in the cosmetics industry at the end of 2006

The Ministry predicted the number of cosmetic chemists will rise by 20 percent every year.

An official of the Ministry said on Sunday that chemists are urgently needed in China to improve competitiveness of Chinese cosmetics and to meeting the huge market demand.

By the end of 2006, China had had more than 3,800 cosmetics enterprises and the annual cosmetics sales exceeded 100 billion yuan in 2006, according to the Ministry.

However, domestically-made cosmetics had less than 20 percent of the domestic market, according to Zhang Xiaomei, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

A number of Chinese cosmetics firms have been taken over by foreign competitors. A recent example is the takeover of Mininurse, a popular Chinese brand by France's L'Oreal.

Zhang said the government should support the development of its own cosmetics brands by spending more on technology upgrading and training of specialists.

Source: Xinhua