"The ecological status of our country has come into a key stage, of which management and devastation are major conflicts," Lei Jiafu, vice head of the State Forestry Administration said.

Although China's forested area grew from 16.5 percent in 1999 to 18.2 percent last year, the increase was largely due to recent reforestation efforts, which meant trees were immature and the quality of forest cover low, he said.

"Excessive logging is still a major problem," Lei said in a statement given to journalists.

"On one hand, the resources available for harvesting are inadequate and on the other hand excess quota logging is still extremely serious."

China introduced a logging ban in 1999 after rampant tree cutting had been blamed for soil erosion and severe flooding along the Yangtze river.

During the last five years, Chinese loggers annually exceeded logging quotas by an average of 75 million cubic meters, he said.

Meanwhile some 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) of forest was "occupied, requisitioned or converted" to non-forest uses during the period, he said.

Xiao Xingwei, also with the forestry administration, said China was cracking down on illegal timber trade with neighboring countries, including Russia, Indonesia and Myanmar, and was seeking bilateral agreements on the rational exploitation of forests and curbing illegal logging.

"China does import timber from other countries, but its import makes only a small portion of its total consumption," Xiao was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.

"It's out of the question for China to satisfy its domestic demands by felling natural woods in the neighboring countries -- it never will."

Following a logging quota system and widespread domestic logging bans in the late 1990s, China's rising demand for imported wood and wood products has been seen as a driving force behind destructive timber cutting in neighboring countries, according to environmental groups such as Greenpeace.

According to the forestry administration, China legally imported 25.5 million cubic meters of timber in 2003.

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