China aims to increase its total annual rice output to at least 190 million metric tons by 2010 to alleviate its grain security problem, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Rice acreage will be expanded to 30 million hectares by then, with a unit yield of 6.4 tons per hectare, the ministry said in a statement published on its Web site late Friday.

China produced 182.57 million tons of rice on 29.3 million hectares of land last year, according to data from the government-backed China National Grain and Oils Information Center.

Using better seeds and technologies, government subsidies to farmers and more investments in agricultural infrastructure will be among the measures taken to boost rice output, said the ministry.