The spending on environmental protection and ecological development in the five years reached 580 billion yuan (US$69.9 billion), amounting to 1.7 times the figure from 1950 to 1997, said Chinese premier Zhu Rongji in the Report on the Work of the Government delivered at the opening of the First Session of the 10th National People's Congress Wednesdeay.

Six forest ecological projects -- reforesting formerly cultivated land, protecting natural forests and controlling the sources of dust storms affecting Beijing and Tianjin -- were carried out in full.

During these five years, an additional 27.87 million hectares of land was covered with trees; 31.53 million hectares of hills were cordoned off for afforestation, and about 3.82 million hectares of formerly cultivated land were returned to forests. Soil erosion on 266,000 square km of land and desertification on about 5.7 million hectares of land were brought under control.

The tendency towards worsening environmental pollution has, on the whole, been arrested. New progress was made in the protection of natural resources.

(China.org.cn March 6, 2003)