China planted 74.04 million mu (4.9 million hectares) of new forests by mid-June this year, said an official with the State Forestry Administration (SFA) on Monday.

The new forests accounted for 83.38 percent of the 2010 target, said Wang Zhuxiong, an official in charge of afforestation in the SFA during a press conference in Beijing.

Among the total, 52.48 million mu resulted from artificial afforestation, and 2.15 billion trees were planted by volunteers between the beginning of the year to mid-June, Wang said.

Since the Chinese government first encouraged nationwide participation in tree-planting in 1981, more than 56 billion trees had been planted by volunteers across the country, the SFA said in March.

Just in 2009, Chinese volunteers planted 2.48 billion trees to add afforested land of 88.27 million mu, according to the SFA.

(Xinhua News Agency June 29, 2010)