Unilever Plants Trees at China Centenary Altar

A ceremony was held at the China Centenary Altar, in downtown Beijing, Sunday to launch a tree-planting program by the Unilever, a well-known international manufacturer of daily commodities.

Present at the ceremony were Cheng Siyuan, a vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), Qu Geping, chairman of the NPC Environmental and Resources Protection Committee, and Xie Zhenhua, director of State Environmental Protection Administration.

Today's tree-planting, dubbed "Unilever Centenary Forest", is part of a major environmental protection program titled the "Unilever Living Environment Initiative: Clean Water and Green Mountains for China" launched this June by the company, according to Bruno Lemagne, president of Unilever (China).

Unilever committed itself to planting 500,000 trees in China this year; with a total cost of seven million yuan, this year's quota will be exceeded, said Mr. Lemagne.

To this day, the program has been carried out in Chongqing Municipality, Sichuan, Hebei and Qinghai provinces, and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Unilever also plans to plant trees in Shanghai and Guangzhou cities later this year, he noted.

Unilever entered the Chinese market 80 years ago. Currently, it manufactures and markets products in 13 categories, including toothpaste and tea, in China, Lemagne said.



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