Chinese President Hu Jintao Saturday urged people nationwide to keep planting trees in a voluntary way to help build a more attractive country.

Hu made the remarks when he was planting trees with young pioneers together with other top leaders of the country including top legislator Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao at the Beiwu park in the northern part of the capital.

Saturday marked the 26th voluntary tree planting day of Beijing. Some 2 million local residents had taken part in the activity over the past few days.

Hu said the voluntary tree planting activity helped improve the environment and fight global warming.

Hu called on constant efforts to mobilize the whole society to join the activity to create a beautiful and hospitable environment.

Over the past three decades, more than 12 billion people had planted some 56 billion trees across the country, statistics showed.

Last year alone, China planted 88.27 million mu (5.88 million hectares) of trees.