Oct 22 (Reuters) - Cheniere Energy expects China

gas demand to grow to more than 600 billion cubic meters (bcm)

by 2040 from 400 bcm today, a company executive said at the Asia

Gas Markets conference on Tuesday.

"There's no doubt that gas demand growth in China, in

absolute terms, is substantially driven by energy demand,

policies like coal-to-gas-switch as well as a huge

infrastructure build-up," said Yingying Zhou, director LNG

origination at Cheniere.

China will be the world's first 100-million-ton LNG market

very soon, with LNG accounting for about 25%-30% of China's

overall gas demand mix, Zhou added.

China is the world's largest importer of LNG. It imported

71.19 million tons of LNG last year, according to the country's

customs data.

(Reporting by Emily Chow and Gabrielle Ng; Editing by

Christopher Cushing and Muralikumar Anantharaman)