The boss of a restaurant in China has revealed the grim reality of the country's dog meat industry to media.

The unidentified man, who reportedly owns a dog meat restaurant in southern China, claimed that some breeders are raising 'thousands of puppies' to feed diners.

The interview comes after Shenzhen, a city bordering Hong Kong, passed the country's first law amid the coronavirus pandemic to ban its residents from eating dogs and cats.

A restaurant owner in southern China's Guangdong province is expecting his dog meat business to drop by some 40 per cent after the city of Shenzhen passed a law to ban the eating of pets. The file photo shows caged dogs for sale at a street market in Guangdong in 2013

The restaurateur told Chinese video outlet Pear: 'Many people eat dogs in Guangxi and Leizhou, where I am from.'

What is the Yulin Dog Meat Festival? Some claim that the consumption of dog meat has been observed in Guangxi Province, China, for hundreds of years. However, the activity was not promoted and encouraged until around 30 years ago - first by the dog meat traders, then by the Yulin government for driving tourism. The annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival can be traced back to 2009. The event has drawn waves of criticism from media and animal lovers, with influential figures leading campaigns around the world in a bid to stop it. The local government has stopped organising the festival under pressure, as it is understood, but vendors continue selling dog meat and residents carry on eating it on the summer solstice. Advertisement

The man is said to run a store selling dog meat hotpot in Leizhou, a prefecture-level city with around 1.7 million residents in neighbouring Guangdong province.

He added: 'Some people in Guangxi raise dogs to sell them. They bring them up like pigs. One household would keep thousands of dogs for their meat.'

Guangxi is a province in southern China where the notorious Yulin Dog Meat Festival takes place every June. It sees thousands of dogs cruelly killed, skinned and cooked with blow-torches before being eaten by the locals.

Although the dog-meat ban is only imposed on Shenzhen, which is about 560 kilometres (348 miles) from Leizhou, the restaurant owner is expecting his business to drop by some 40 per cent due to the impact of the legislation.

He said: 'Many people ask [us] if there is dog meat. And if we don't, they would just leave.

'It is certain that my business will be affected. [The drop is estimated] to be 30 to 40 per cent.'

Another restaurant owner, however, told Pear that business for dog meat had been declining before the law was approved.

'After the ban, I will just stop selling [dog meat]. I will sell something else,' she said.

On Tuesday, lawmakers in Shenzhen passed a drafted law to prohibit the consumption of pet meat, including that of cats and dogs.

The Yulin Dog Meat Festival is one of the most controversial festivals in the world. The local government has stopped organising the festival under pressure, but locals are still consuming canine meat. The file picture shows one of the market stalls during the festival on June 21, 2016

The legislation will take effect on May 1 in the city of around 13 million people.

Before that, China had already banned all trade and consumption of wild animals, a practice believed responsible for the country's deadly virus epidemic.

According to the accord, nine types of livestock are suitable for people to eat. They are pigs, cows, sheep, donkeys, rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese and pigeons.

Residents are also allowed to dine on aquatic animals permitted by law.

One charity group hailed the passage as a 'historic decision' which marked 'a watershed moment' in the animal protection in China.

Lawmakers in Shenzhen this week passed a drafted law to ban the consumption of pet meat

Dr Peter Li, China policy specialist for animal protection charity Humane Society International, said in a statement: 'With Shenzhen taking the historic decision to become mainland China's first city to ban dog and cat meat consumption, this really could be a watershed moment in efforts to end this brutal trade that kills an estimated 10 million dogs and four million cats in China every year.

'The majority of these companion animals are stolen from people's back yards or snatched from the streets, and are spirited away on the backs of trucks to be beaten to death in slaughterhouses and restaurants across China.'

The exact source of the novel coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, remains unconfirmed. Scientists speculate that it originated in bats, snakes, pangolins, or some other animal.

Experts from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said in January that tests proved that humans had caught the novel coronavirus from animals at the Huanan Seafood Wholesales Market. The market (pictured on March 31) has remained shut since January 1

Experts from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said in January that tests proved that humans had caught the virus from animals at the Huanan Seafood Wholesales Market.

The market was shut on January 1 in the wake of the epidemic.

In China alone, the health crisis has claimed 3,322 lives and infected more than 81,620 people.

And globally, at least 53,000 people have died and more than a million have contracted the disease.