The Government of Vietnam has approved total investment of VND15 trillion or US$937.5 million for the national five million hectare reforestation program (5MHRP) in 2006-2010 period.
Of the sum, VND5 trillion (US$312.5 million) will be sourced from the State budget and the rest will be mobilized from other sources.
The Government instructed cities and provinces to re-project three kinds of forests, comprising specially used forest, protective forest and production forest.
According to the Government, 5 per cent of the State budget or US$16.5 million will be dedicated to forest managing and protecting forest activities.
Approved in 1997 by Vietnamese Government, the program will be carried out from 1998 to 2010 with an aim of increasing the country’s forestry coverage rate to over 40 per cent by then and zoning forest material areas and creating more jobs for ethnic minorities.
Under the program, additional 5 million ha of forest, including 2 million ha of specially used and protective and 3 million ha of production forest will be planted. Recovering two million ha of natural forest is also included in the program, which has total investment of VND31,650 billion (nearly US$2 billion)
Vietnam spent around VND8 trillion (USUS$500 million) in the plan in the1998-2005 period.
As of late 2006, Vietnam has around 12.5 million ha of forest, six million ha are managed by state-owned companies, 3.7 million ha by private companies.
Vietnamese
