The Director of the State Forestry Bureau Zhou Shengxian says after several years' large-scale forestry development, China's profits from forest products have topped the world. 

The director discloses that the overall forest production value is more than 20 times of those in the 1980's and the forest cover rate is almost double what it was when the new China was founded in 1949.

The sales from bamboo and flower industries both have reached 20 billion yuan, or about US$2.4 billion respectively.

(CRI September 27, 2003)