China's forest parks received 200 million visitors from home and abroad last year, up 20 percent over 2005, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) announced in Beijing on Friday.

Forest tourism has generated handsome profits for China's forestry industry, according to Cao Qingyao, spokesman with the SFA.

According to the SFA, tickets sales of forest parks brought in 26 billion yuan (about 3.25 billion U.S. dollars) from 2001 to 2005.

The number of visitors to China's forest parks are expected to double by 2010, said the SFA.

China has now established 1,928 forest parks, covering an area of 15.13 million hectares. Its first forest park was established in 1982 in Zhangjiajie in central China's Hunan Province.

Source: Xinhua