The State Forestry Administration says China will strengthen the planting of shelter-forests along the coasts in the next five years. 

The agency says that shelter-forests should be engineered to deal with emergencies such as tsunamis and storm tides.

It says more plants should be supplemented when some areas of the forest belt spoiled.

China has over 18,000 kilometers of coastal area.

Natural disasters, such as typhoons and rainstorms have caused economic losses of over 10 billion yuan (about US$1.2 billion) annually over the past years.

(CRI August 12, 2005)