At a press conference held in Beijing, he said that "China is cutting logging quotas in natural forests while more timber will be produced from forests planted for commercial use."

About 60 percent of the country's timber supply is from natural forests now and the government expects the figure to reduce to 30 percent.

China is carrying out a 10-year program to protect natural forests in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River as well as northeast China and Inner Mongolia, where major timber production bases are located. The timber output in these areas will be cut by 19.9 million cubic meters by the completion of the program.

Besides the above, the country is launching another five key forestry programs and the planned afforestation is mainly to cope with environmental problems such as soil erosion and sandstorms.

There are worries about the timber output reduction and expected increase in timber imports as the country now consumes 370 million cubic meters of timber every year.

The reduction in logging quotas in natural forests will have an impact on the domestic timber market but the effect "won't be excessive," Lei noted.

China plans to develop 13.33 million hectares of forests for commercial use in 18 eastern provinces over the next 15 years.

As about 130 million cubic meters of timber is expected to be produced, equal to 40 percent of domestic timber demand in 2015, the supply of timber will meet the demand, Lei said.

The Chinese government will make still harder efforts to update the related technology and equipment in the timber processing industry in a bid to save forestry resources.

(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2002)