Proposed by the ruling party, the bill gained the nod from parliament’s bipartisan agriculture committee on Monday for a vote in the 300-member, single-chamber assembly.

Breaking the law will be punishable by up to three years in prison or 30 million won ($34,000) in fines.

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“The bill would see an end to the breeding and killing of dogs for human consumption,” said Borami Seo of Humane Society International Korea, an animal protection group. “We have reached a pivotal point to spare millions of dogs from this cruel industry.”

In a survey released on Monday by Animal Welfare Awareness, Research and Education, a Seoul-based think tank, more than 94 per cent of respondents said they had not eaten dog meat for the past year and about 93 per cent said they would not do so in the future.

Previous efforts to prohibit dog meat have failed in the face of industry protests, and the bill seeks to provide compensation so that businesses can move out of the trade.

In November, a group of about 200 breeders of dogs for consumption held a rally near the presidential office, demanding the bill be scrapped.

Reuters