China has spent a total of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars of foreign loans and grants on its forestry sector by the end of last year since the country started international cooperation on forestry development in 1985, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) announced Tuesday.
The foreign funding, together with 8.7 billion yuan (about 1.37 billion U.S.dollars) of domestic funds, has helped develop a total of 5.82 million hectares of artificial afforestation and increased standing timber volume by 550 million cubic meters in China, said the SFA.