London, March 7 (IANS) China is farming African wild Rhinos in order to harvest their horns for alleged medicinal properties, a newspaper reported Sunday quoting a report by international conservation monitors.

China has imported 141 live white rhino from South Africa since 2000 - far more than is needed to promote tourism - with the possible aim of setting up rhino farms, the Sunday Times quoted the report as saying.

The monitoring report is due to be delivered to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and comes ahead of a CITES meeting of wildlife experts in Qatar next week.

The report says: 'Since 2000 Chinese data suggest 141 rhinos were obtained from South Africa. Reports of horn harvesting of captive rhinos in China have surfaced but need further verification. Clarification on the purpose of keeping large aggregations of captive rhino in China would be welcomed.'

'The suspicion is that these rhinos are being aggregated into herds and farmed for their horns, which are valued for medicinal purposes,' said Tom Milliken of Traffic, a non-governmental wildlife trade monitoring network.

The newspaper said the discovery has alarmed British and European Union officials, who plan to ask the Chinese to explain if they are allowing rhino farming.

Of the five surviving rhino species, the Javan rhino is close to extinction, numbering just 130, with the neighbouring Sumatran rhino following with closely only about 300 survivors.

The great one-horned rhino, found mainly in India, has only about 2,800 animals.

However, wildlife experts are particularly concerned about the two African species - the black and white rhinos - because of a surge in poaching and exports.

Black rhinos number only about 4,200 while there are an estimated 17,500 white rhinos left - and most are kept in reserves and wildlife parks.