South Africa on Thursday sold approximately 47 tonnes of ivory for about 6.7 million dollars (5.23 million euros), the last in a set of four auctions approved under an international agreement, an official statement said.

Twelve Chinese and 22 Japanese buyers bidded for the South African ivory stockpile, the largest stockpile in the four countries, the statement by the organisers said.

Fifty-one tonnes of ivory were originally expected to be auctioned in South Africa but `four tonnes were later withdrawn because they did not meet international standards,` a spokeswoman of the South African National Parks (SANParks), Wanda Mkutshulwa, told AFP.

`We have not decided yet on what to do with the withdrawn four tonnes. We may later decide to sell them locally,` she said.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates international trade in endangered species, allowed only four African countries to hold one-off sales to buyers from China and Japan.

The Asian giants are among the world`s largest markets for ivory, which is used for families` traditional seals to stamp documents as well as handicrafts.

Since ivory auction kicked off in Namibia on October 28, they have also earlier been held in Botswana and Zimbabwe.

CITES Secretary General Willem Wijnstekers, who attended the auction, said that a total of 101 tonnes of ivory was auctioned in the four countries and generated a total revenue of about 15 million dollars (11.74 million euros), the statement said.

Originally, a total of 108 tonnes of tusks were put on the block, in sales that some conservationists fear could make it easier for poachers to slip their illegal ivory on to the market.

CITES has imposed stiff requirements on buyers of the ivory, which can only be sold within China and Japan and cannot be resold overseas. Both countries were required to create monitoring systems before the sale.

Wijnstekers had earlier dismissed fears that the auctions could increase poaching, saying `we have no such evidence.`

`We fully appreciate and embrace our responsibility to ensure that we stamp down on poaching of any kind and so we intend to use considerable amounts of the funds we raise today towards increasing our anti-poaching capacity,` David Mabunda, the chief executive of SANParks, said at the opening of Thursday`s auction.

The four countries are home to 312,000 elephants, and their government stocks of tusks came from natural deaths or the culling of herds to keep the population under control.