Ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan is preparing to roll out a new system under which the millions of sheep residing in the mountainous state will receive their own high-tech passport, state television reported yesterday.

First Deputy Prime Minister Akylbek Japarov said in an address to Parliament the government has drafted a bill to deliver a cutting-edge passport to the nation's sheep.

"We are ready to make a passport for each sheep. That is, from their birth to their slaughter, it will be possible to recognise a sheep's pedigree by using laser scanning," he said.

Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished Central Asian country bordering China and Kazakhstan, is home to 4.25 million sheep, according to official government statistics.

Dzhalalidin Gaybulin, head of the National Centre of Quarantine and Infectious Diseases of the Ministry of Health, told reporters the passports would help contain disease and urged authorities to go one step further.

"In Kyrgyzstan, every cow must obtain a passport in order to prevent the spread of dangerous infection to humans," he said.