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Cowering behind bars in secret breeding farms... these are the monkeys trapped in China's cruel plan to become the world's biggest exporter of chimps for scientific tests.

One farm nearing completion will be able to hold 50,000 monkeys - making it the largest in the world.

Thousands of these frightened creatures are heading for the UK, victims of a booming global demand from pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies for animals to use in tests.

Figures released last week reveal that the number of live tests on monkeys in Britain soared by 16 per cent to 4,598 in the past year.

And yesterday animals rights groups blasted the increasing use of chimps for testing in the UK and called on politicians here to end the cruel trade.

Andrew Tyler, of Animal Aid, said: "Testing on monkeys is a savage, ugly and pointless business. If the public were to see what is happening to these poor monkeys during tests they would be horrified."

The Sunday Mirror uncovered disturbing images inside the monkey farms after visiting the Conghua area of Guangzhou province in China. Home to more than 40 farms, chimps arrive here from Cambodia and are bred to be sold across the globe.

Obscured by hills and notoriously secretive, the chimp camps are hidden away from the world. But our investigators - posing as businessman looking to help supply monkeys to the UK for testing - were able to get access to some of the farms.

Inside, monkeys were packed tight into cages. Mothers clutched their babies in the sterile prisons awaiting the journey to the labs of Europe, America and the Far East where they will be tortured in the name of science.

Most of the monkeys fetch about £1,000 each. But cruel farm managers spend as little as 20p a day caring for them.

China's market in exporting chimps - sought after by companies to test on because they are the closest animal to man - is now worth an estimated £150million a year.

Around 90,000 monkeys were used in tests in labs across the world last year, and the vast majority were from Chinese farms.

One farm currently being built by the Guangzhou Blooming Spring Biological Technology Development Co is hidden in the countryside and invisible from any main road.

Cages are concealed in a pink-tiled compound over a kilometre in length and are surrounded by a 12ft guarded wall. On arriving at the farm a supervisor boasted to our investigators: "We have bought that hillside and soon it will be covered in cages. We already have feeding facilities for 50,000."

In the farm's laboratory - where scientists test monkeys for diseases petrified chimps, many carrying babies, are locked behind steel doors and let out high-pitched screams as they are tested.

At another camp, the Huazhen Laboratory Center, a manager explained how the UK is now becoming an increasingly important market for Chinese monkey farm owners to crack.

Laboratory manager Mr Huazhen said: "I have already visited animal laboratories at Huntington, Oxford. I have no doubt in my mind China will soon be the most important exporter of monkeys in the world."

EXPERIMENTS IN BRITAIN IN 2008

Scientists carried out 3.7million experiments on live animals in Britain last year - the highest number for two decades. As well as the 4,598 experiments on monkeys they included:

2.4million on mice

605,000 on fish

355,000 on rats

123,000 on birds

17,000 on rabbits

9,000 on horses and donkeys

360 on cats