China, Japan Launch Afforestation ProjectMore than 1,000 trees of a 60-hectare would-be forest was planted in the suburbs of Beijing today, marking the initiation of a Sino-Japanese afforestation project.The non-governmental project aims to help improve China's afforestation, which will also promote the exchange and understanding between Chinese and Japanese people, said Nonaka Niromu, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan at the tree-planting ceremony. The Chinese and Japanese governments helped set up a committee for Sino-Japanese people-to-people cooperation in afforestation in 1999 and a 10-billion-Japanese-yen fund for the project. The forest, located in northern Beijing, is financed by the fund with an input of 4 million yuan, of which 2.1 million yuan came from Japan. The project, part of Beijing's anti-desert shield, is expected to be completed in 2003. Among the 12 Sakura trees. The fund has so far funded 23 cooperation projects for afforestation in China. |
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