China to increase forest coverage to 23.04% by 2020

China aims to promote forest coverage to 23.04 percent by 2020 from the current 21.66 percent, an official told a meeting on Sunday.

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 (1.37 trillion U.S. dollars) 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, according to Zhang.

China's forest coverage stood at 20.36 percent, or 195 million hectares, at the end of 2008.