Anhui planted 202,767 hectares of trees last year, turning it into a green province.

"The figure exceeded its target by about 12,100 hectares, a success the province has achieved in the past decade," said a spokesman at the press conference in the province's afforestation bulletin.

At the conference, Chizhou was given the title of a national forest city.

The provincial government signed letters of responsibility last December with all cities to complete the task of planting 666,667 hectares of trees in the next three years.

"Our target is to cover 95 percent of the land along railway lines and highways with trees, and green 90 percent of the space along rivers and canals," the spokesman said.

The province's output in the forestry industry totaled 205.95 billion yuan ($33.54 billion) last year – an increase of 28.7 percent over 2012. The cities of Xuancheng, Suzhou, Lu'an and Chuzhou each generated a forestry output value of more than 20 billion yuan ($3.26 billion).