China plans to overhaul its forestry sector by seeking foreign investment in an industry estimated at some 200 billion yuan (24 billion dollars) in the next several years, state press reported Tuesday.

From Xinhua news agency online

The central government recently approved a plan to build a complete industry chain for its forestry and paper making sectors by 2010, Xinhua quoted Liu Tienan, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), as saying.
The move is aimed at meeting the rapidly increasing demand for paper consumption and to ease mounting industrial pressure on the environment, Liu said.

Such a program would include planting five million hectares of trees in the southeastern coastal areas and the construction of three or four large-scale wood pulp mills on the southeast coast.
The construction of several bamboo pulp mills in southwestern China each with an annual capacity of between 100,000 and 500,000 tons are also planned.

China's demand for paper has increased as it has modernised, with consumption totalling 48 million tons of paper last year, or 16 percent of the world's total.

It, however, has a very limited number of forests that can be used for logging.

In large part China's paper makers use straw, a procedure that uses greater amounts of water and pollutes more than wood fiber.

In October 2000, waste water from Qianan city paper mills in the northern province of Hebei destroyed the harvest of aquatic farms in the Bohai Bay covering more than 200 hectares, the report said.

The China Paper Association has predicted China's paper consumption will total 70 million tons in 2010, but by then Liu said China will be able to add production capacity of 5.5 million tons of wood pulp through its national program.