China awarded more than 1.7 million certificates to about 600,000 organizations by the end of last year, the country's top authority for certification and accreditation said on Thursday.

The nation's testing and certification industry, with total revenue exceeding 200 billion yuan ($29.1 billion)?last year, is growing at a faster rate than any other country, Sun Dawei, head of the Certification and Accreditation Administration, told a work conference.

Although it leads the world in scale and is fast reducing the gap between it and the global leaders in certification and accreditation, China still lags behind developed countries in areas such as efficiency and technological innovation, he said.

Sun said the country will intensify international cooperation and exchanges in certification and accreditation this year and promote international mutual recognition of standards, while boosting the export of China's certification and accreditation standards, technology and services.

In November, the nation signed an agreement with New Zealand on mutual recognition of each other's standards for organic products. The deal, the first of its kind for China, will boost development of the domestic organic industry and bilateral trade, the administration said.