China's Guangxi plants over 200,000 hectares of trees annually for 15 years

NANNING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has added an annual average of more than 3 million mu (200,000 hectares) of afforested area for 15 consecutive years.

The region's grassland vegetation coverage rate has reached 82.9 percent, said the forestry bureau of Guangxi on Tuesday.

The rocky desertification land area in the region decreased by 7.2 million mu compared with 2016.

Guangxi has adopted various ways to add greenery and promote carbon sink capacity, including comprehensively strengthening scientific afforestation in key river basins and vigorously developing economic forests.

So far, the planted forest area in Guangxi has hit 134 million mu, accounting for about 10 percent of the country's total.

Cai Zhongping, director of the region's forestry bureau, said the total output value of Guangxi's forestry and grass industry is expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan (about 139 billion U.S. dollars).