Nation boosts support for its forestry

China has strengthened its fiscal support for its increasing forest area, launched a number of national ecological projects and implemented a nationwide compulsory tree-planting program to expand forests over the past two decades, Yin Hong, deputy administrator of the State Forestry Administration, said at a news conference on Monday in Beijing.

Despite a decreasing global forest reserve, the country's forest area had increased to 195 million hectares in 2012. That was up from 134 million hectares in 1992, according to the administration.

At present, China has more than 61 million hectares of reforested area, the most in the world. Its area undergoing desertification is dropping by 1,717 square kilometers annually, compared to an annual expansion of 3,436 square kilometers at the end of the 1990s, Yin said.