China is capable of meeting its own demand for timber now that the country has basically maintained a balance between its supply and demand for forest resources, forestry officials have said.

The Chinese government gives high priority to sustainable development and proper protection of the ecosystem, including conservation of the worldwide forest resources, said Xiao Xingwei,an official in charge of forest resources management with the State Forestry Administration.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Xiao said the Chinese government has always been firm in cracking down upon illegal trading of timber and has enhanced cooperation with Russia, Indonesia, Myanmar and other lumber exporting countries by signingpacts on the protection and rational exploitation of forest resources as well as the fight against illegal tree felling and timber trading.

"Accordingly, Chinese businesses have strictly observed local laws and regulations in their exploitation of forest resources overseas," said Xiao.

He said China does import timber from other countries, but its import makes only a small portion of its total consumption. "It's out of the question for China to satisfy its domestic demands by felling natural woods in the neighboring countries -- it never will."

China's total timber consumption in 2003 reached a record 228.43 million cubic meters and its aggregate supply stood at 224.13 million cubic meters, said Lei Jiafu, vice director of the forestry administration, quoting the administration's 2004 report on the nation's forestry development.

The same report said China imported 25.46 million cubic meters of timber and exported 21.52 million cubic meters of wood productsin 2003. "We can see our demand and supply were pretty well balanced for that year," said Lei.

Starting from 1998, China has implemented six key projects to expand forest coverage and upgrade quality of the forests through better conservation of natural woods and reclamation of farmland into forests.

"In 2002, we launched a number of strategic, high-yield forestry production bases to ease the bottleneck between timber supply and demand," said Lei, "and our efforts have started to payoff."

According to the sixth survey on China's forestry resources conducted between 1999 and 2003, China's forest coverage has reached 18.21 percent and 175 million hectares of its territory are forested.

Meanwhile, the inventory shows China's forest accumulation totals 12.456 billion cubic meters, including 1.585 billion cubic meters of fellable forests and 5.671 billion cubic meters of premature trees that promise quality timber in the foreseeable future.

"By 2010, they'll provide 3 billion cubic meters of timber, which is enough to meet the country's future demand," said Lei.

The sixth nationwide forestry survey involved more than 20,000 scientists and forestry workers. They used satellite monitoring technologies and carried out site surveys on China's forest acreage, accumulation, makeup, distribution, growth and consumption as well as forest's influence on ecological environment.

The current figures have not included the acreage of newly-planted trees.

China's forested area increased by 15.968 million hectares, or 889 million cubic meters in accumulation, from 2000 to 2003, and the forest coverage rate grew by 1.66 percentage points to reach the current 18.21 percent from the former 16.55 percent.

Source: Xinhua