BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday attended a voluntary tree planting activity in Beijing and called for more efforts in afforestation to write a new chapter in building a beautiful China.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while attending the tree planting activity.

Xi and other leaders, including Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, Li Xi, and Han Zheng, planted trees with local people at a city park in the eastern district of Chaoyang in the spring shower.

It is the 11th year that Xi has participated in the annual tree-planting activity as the general secretary.

The leaders' participation in tree planting is to mobilize people across the country to work for a beautiful China, Xi said.

While planting saplings of various types of trees, Xi asked the young students around him about their studies, encouraging them to love work and become capable young people with sound moral grounding, intellectual ability, physical vigor, aesthetic sensibility, and work skills.

China tops the world in the scale of artificial afforestation, and the planting area is still expanding, Xi said, adding that China and the Chinese people have made notable contributions to greening the Earth and coping with global climate change.

Hailing forests as capable of conserving water, creating economic profits, boosting grain production, and serving as a carbon sink, Xi said afforestation would benefit future generations and should be continued consistently.

Speaking of the afforestation efforts in Beijing, Xi called for an appropriate proportion of different tree species in line with the biological and ecological chains and advancing afforestation in the whole city.

Xi highlighted green development as the country's major development strategy now and for the foreseeable future and called nationwide tree-planting campaigns an active practice to advance afforestation and build a beautiful China.

He asked all regions and departments to launch voluntary tree planting campaigns based on local conditions and create favorable conditions for the public to participate in these campaigns.