BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- China is mulling enshrining its National Tree Planting Day in law to better protect the country's forests and give an extra push to its continuous pursuit of green development.

The proposal was made in a draft revision to the forest law, which was submitted Monday for a third reading at the ongoing bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

March 12 was designated as China's National Tree Planting Day by an NPC Standing Committee resolution in 1979.

The country's forest coverage rate has increased by nearly 10 percentage points since the late 1970s.

In 2018, China planted 7.07 million hectares of trees, and the country is home to the world's largest man-made forest in scale.