Since the project of control of sources of sandstorms affecting Beijing and neighboring Tianjin was launched in 2000, Beijing has afforested 494,600 hectares of land. Occurrences of sandstorms were reduced to two or three times per year in recent years, from more than 13 times in 2000.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), Beijing will continue with the second phase of the project, aiming to upgrade 100,000 hectares of forests with low protection efficiency.

Statistics show that the first phase of the project has afforested 460,000 hectares of land with 150 million trees planted. Forest coverage in mountainous areas was increased to 52 percent and greening rate to 72.8 percent, up by 12.2 percentage points and 15.4 percentage points from 2000, respectively.

The project has also promoted leisure tourism, and industries of farming, livestock breeding and fruit growing, thusincreasing incomes of local farmers.

Since the first phase of the project was implemented, agricultural output in areas covered by the project increased to 20.72 billion yuan (US$3.03 billion) in 2012 from 7.95 billion yuan in 2000, resulting in an annualized growth rate of 8.3 percent.

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