China would build 13.33 million hectares of forests by 2020 to produce bio-diesel oil and fuels for power generation, said Director Jia Zhibang of the State Forestry Administration on Tuesday.

Jia said the lipid- and starch-rich materials from the forests could be processed into liquid to make bio-diesel oil and ethanol fuel and some woods could be cut into small cubes for the power generation.

The country plans to produce more than six million tons of bio-diesel oil with materials from the forests and increase the installed capacity of power generation by more than 15 million kilowatts by 2020, Jia said.

"We foresees a bright future for the forest-based bioenergy," Jia said.

He said the potential of the country's forest-based bioenergy would be equivalent to 200 million tons of coal, the utilization of which would reduce the consumption of fossil energy by ten percent.

There are more than four million hectares of oil plants nationwide, and 154 kinds of trees could produce seeds containing more than 40 percent of oil, with total production of the seeds totaling five million tons.

Another 57 million hectares of waste land are available and suitable for planting trees for the production of forest-based bioenergy, according to Jia.

Jia said the administration would develop the forest-based bioenergy together with the China National Petroleum Corporation, the country's grain importer and exporter COFCO and the State Grid Corporation of China.

(Xinhua News Agency July 17, 2007)