National Assembly Vương Đình Huệ on Monday attends the tree planting festival in Yên Sơn District, northern Tuyên Quang Province. — VNA/VNS Photo

TUYÊN QUANG — National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vương Đình Huệ on Monday launched the tree planting festival and kicked off an emulation campaign in Yên Sơn District, northern Tuyên Quang Province.

He said the tree planting festival in the 2023 Lunar New Year continues to inherit from the festival initiated by late President Hồ Chí Minh 63 years ago.

This is also “our commitment to fulfill the request of the Secretariat’s Directive No 13-CT/TW dated January 12, 2017 on strengthening the Party's leadership in forest management, protection and development in order to build a green economy, towards developing the country harmoniously and sustainably,” he said.

He praised Tuyên Quang Province for leading the country in forest protection and forestry economic development. Forest land area of the province accounts for 76 per cent of the natural area, of which areas of special-use forests and protection forests account for 37.8 per cent.

The province newly plants over 11,000 ha of forests every year and formed a nearly 200,000 ha forest area for raw materials.

With a forest coverage rate of over 65 per cent, the province has maintained a diverse and sustainable ecosystem, contributed to preserving genetic resources and creating aquatic resources as well as preventing natural disasters, he said.

In recent years, Tuyên Quang continues to effectively promote its strengths in forestry economic development, attracting investors to build processing factories, creating products of high economic value from forest wood, which are favoured by the local market and foreign markets of Japan, Europe and US.

The average growth rate of the local forestry industry has reached 9 per cent per year, annually contributing over 4 per cent to the provincial Gross Regional Domestic Product and creating jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers.

“The forest growers must live by the forest and get rich from the forest,” Huệ said, urging the province to strive for the goal of becoming as a hi-tech applied forestry centre and a hub for wood production and processing in the midlands and northern region.

He also asked local authorities at all levels to continue emulation movement and promote solidarity and the learning and following of Hồ Chí Minh's thought, morality and style. — VNS