World Bank provides 640 mln yuan

A total of 320,000 hectares of high-standard forests have been planted in east China's Anhui Province since the 1990s with loans from the World Bank (WB), according to the provincial forestry authorities. Some 640 million yuan (about 100 million U.S. dollars) from the WB has been put toward planting trees, part of China's efforts to introduce foreign investment to help maintain ecosystems, said a spokesman for the foreign capital project office of Anhui Provincial Forestry Bureau. To date, Anhui has completed four of the five World Bank-supported tree planting projects it has implemented in more than 35 counties. The 320,000 hectares of newly established forests accounts for 36.8 percent of the province's total man-made forest area in the same period. Those trees have helped forests better function in times of water and soil conservation and carbon emissions reduction. They have also improved species diversification in the area. The trees in the newly planted forests can store 31.7 million cubic meters of water and reduce 55 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. The implementation of these projects has also helped local farmers increase their income and improved living standards by creating more than 940,000 jobs and some forest products. In recent years, China has been introducing foreign capital to the development of afforestation projects. Last month, the WB approved 100 million U.S. dollars in loans to five provinces in China, including Anhui, to promote integrated forestry, the WB's China office said.