China to increase forest coverage to 23.04 pct by 2020

China aims to promote its forest coverage to 23.04 per cent by 2020 from the current 21.66 per cent, the government said today.
By 2020, the volume of growing stock shall rise to 16.5 billion cubic meters, up from 15.14 billion cubic meters by the end of 2015, Zhang Jianlong, head of the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said.
Meanwhile, the forest administrator is also considering boosting forestry output value to 9 trillion yuan (USD 1.37 trillion) from last year's 5.81 trillion yuan.
During the past five years, investment in the forestry industry totalled 494.8 billion yuan, 1.7 times the sum recorded in the previous five years.

China's forest cover is about 10 percentage points lower than the world average rate, despite expanding 450 million mu (30 million hectares) during the past five years, said Zhang.
China's forest coverage stood at 20.36 per cent, or 195 million hectares, at the end of 2008.