Illegal buying and selling of human organs has been written into a draft amendment to China's Criminal Law to intensify the crackdown against the illegal trade.

The draft amendment was on Monday submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, for its first read.

The draft amendment states that those involved in illegal trading of human organs, including organizing, coercing and tricking others into donating, and taking human organs from the deceased without the donor's consent, should be subject to a five-year sentence or longer, plus fines and confiscation of property.

Each year in China nearly one million people need kidney transplants and 300,000 need liver transplants, but only around one percent can get them legitimately due to a lack of donations, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health.

The huge shortfall in organ donations is widely believed to have given rise to the illegal trade.