Japan is moving to introduce legislation that would oblige pet shops, breeders and other sellers of cats and dogs to implant the animals with electronic chips. The system will be used to track down the owners of stray pets.

A Lower House committee agreed on Friday to submit a draft bill to a Lower House plenary session to revise the law on the welfare and management of animals.

The Japan Veterinary Medical Association says the cylindrical chip is about 12 millimeters long and about 2 millimeters in diameter, and is designed to be injected in the shoulder area with a syringe.

The chip contains a number that is allocated to each animal. This number can be read with a dedicated device.

The draft bill also recommends implanting ID chips in pets that already have owners.

The proposed legislation would make it easier to discover the owners of stray pets after disasters and pets who have been abandoned.

The draft bill would effectively ban the sale and display of dogs and cats that are less than 56 days old -- an increase from the current 49 days. Experts say that animals separated from their parents soon after birth tend to snap and bark at people as they grow, and such pets tend to be abandoned by their owners.

The draft revision is expected to be approved by the Lower House plenary session next week and will then be sent to the Upper House.