The State Forestry Administration (SFA) will dispatch 31 investigation teams to carry out a ten-day survey on forestry construction across the country, which is scheduled to start from the mid-June.

The survey aims to find out the long-standing obstacles and newly-burgeoning problems that hindered the development of the country's forestry through field investigation, said Zhou Shengxian, director of the SFA, at a vedio-phone conference on Tuesday.

"The teams comprise of the SFA officials as well as those from the forestry departments in the provinces, autonomous region s and municipalities. They will go down into towns and villages to solicit the suggestions on forestry construction and to collect the successful first-hand experience among local people," said Zhou, who added the team members have received special training for the survey.

The central government issued a notice on accelerating the country's forestry development in the June, 2003, saying that governments at all levels should give priority to ecological construction to achieve a sustainable development of China's forestry.

Zhou said the governments at all levels have increased investment in forestry and have launched a series of policies to promote the development of forestry over the past year.

The statistics from the SFA shows that China has accomplished a record-high afforestation area of 10.67 million hectares in 2003 and in the first five months of this year, the afforestation area in the country has reached 4.5 million hectares, accounting for 71percent of this year's plan.

"The findings of the survey is expected to inject new energy for the development China's forestry," said Zhou.

(Xinhua News Agency June 9, 2004)