North China's Hebei Province, located around the national capital Beijing, plans to invest more than 15 billion yuan (US$1.8 billion) in tree planting in the coming several years.

According to the provincial forestry bureau, forest area is expected to reach 4.33 million hectares by 2005, with the forest coverage rate hitting 23 percent.

By 2010, the province will have 4.93 million hectares of forest and the forest cover rate will reach 26 percent.

Currently, 19.48 percent of the province is covered with trees, and 63,000 square kilometers, or 30 percent of its total land space, is suffering from soil erosion. The province also has 27,200 square kilometers of desert, accounting for 14.4 percent of its total land area.

Hebei is not only a shelter against sandstorms for Beijing and Tianjin, and an economic center in north China, but also a source of sandstorms for the two major Chinese municipalities.

The central government has, since 2000, launched several forest projects to control and prevent the spread of desert in the province.

The province has planted 566,000 hectares of trees so far this year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2003)