The city of Chishui in southwest China's Guizhou Province plans to return 22,800 ha of farmland to bamboo forest in the next three years, and its bamboo forest area is expected to reach 108,433 ha by 2001.

Chishui is one of the country's ten major bamboo-growing areas, and currently has 60,241 ha of bamboo forest, ranking first in southwest China.

The city has used 15 million yuan (1.8 million US dollars) in loans from the World Bank to renovate the low-yielding bamboo forest.

Concurrently, the city will focus effort on developing bamboo- related products and aims to become the largest bamboo processing base in southwest China. (Xinhua)