*5.2. Recommendations*

Rational utilization of foreign investment means taking advantage of forest areas. The use of foreign capital in forestry significantly affects regional ecological efficiency, and foreign capital is a major thrust for forestry industry development in terms of capital. The reasonable and effective use of foreign capital is conducive to improving regional forestry ecological efficiency. To this end, we should continue to develop the advantages of regional and forest resources and make reasonable use of foreign capital. Specific suggestions are as follows: (1) Broaden the channels of attracting foreign capital and diversify the sources of foreign capital; (2) Rationalize the use and distribution of foreign capital and optimize the utilization structure of foreign capital; (3) Create and establish local forestry characteristic brands, study and learn from foreign advanced forestry experience, and strengthen international exchange and cooperation in forestry; (4) Develop and implement realistic industrial environmental protection standards and guide enterprises in technological innovation; (5) Increase the research, development and application of industrial environmental protection technologies; (6) Promote advanced and mature production technologies to improve resource utilization efficiency.

Local governments should focus on the construction and improvement of environmental protection infrastructure and increase investment in the development of environmental protection technologies; in addition, they should strengthen environmental supervision and regulate the awareness and behavior of forestry enterprises in environmental protection with legal systems to promote FECO. At the same time, the ecological audit system should be implemented in the internal management process of forestry enterprises to incorporate ecological and environmental management into the daily production process of enterprises and to realize the supervision and evaluation of forestry production processes. A reduction in production costs and environmental pollution, and ultimately the enhancement of the comprehensive competitiveness of forest products in domestic and international markets, can be achieved through continuous technological innovation and management innovation of enterprises to improve the quality and grade of forest products.

There must be rational use of forestry resources and a change of forestry production methods. Whether between regions or provinces, the quantity of forestry resources invested, and the level of eco-efficiency are not absolutely the same. The average value of FECO is east > central > west. The rational use of resources and appropriate transformation of forestry production methods to enhance FECO are beneficial. Sending also fully illustrates the importance of rational use of resources and development of forestry according to local conditions. The economically-developed eastern major forestry provinces such as the provinces of Laoning and Fujian can vigorously develop the local forestry economy. The central provinces such as Jiangxi and Anhui, which are rich in forestry resources and have a low level of economic development, can make full use of their abundant forestry resources to vigorously develop low-carbon industries such as ecological forestry. The provinces and cities with scattered and low-scale forestry production methods in each region should change their active forestry development methods. Only in this way can the FECO be improved and forestry be placed on the road of sustainable development.

Each region should design differentiated environmental regulation tools for the forestry industry according to its ecological carrying capacity and the current situation of the FECO. With the aim of improving the FECO, targeted regulatory objectives and policy measures should be formulated according to the actual situation of the region. For most of the central and western regions with low FECO and backward development levels, more attention should be paid to the strength and manner of environmental regulation in future development, especially to prevent the ecological destruction and environmental damage caused by the westward migration of polluting industries from the developed eastern regions. The developed eastern regions with strong economic, financial and technological strength can consider further increasing the intensity of environmental regulations to stimulate enterprises to strengthen the research, development and application of new technologies in the field of ecology and environment. When formulating environmental regulation policies and measures, all regions should consider including the requirement to improve the eco-efficiency of forestry in their environmental policies.

There are several guidelines for reducing the "pollution paradise" effect. The "pollution paradise" effect has caused affected forestry enterprises in provinces and municipalities that have reformed their sewage charges to move their production lines to provinces and municipalities that have not reformed their sewage charges and to "export" their pollution to other provinces. This makes the effectiveness of the policy implementation greatly reduced and further places the pollution pressure on the forestry industry in the provinces that have not been reformed. Therefore, in order to reduce the "pollution paradise" effect, the relevant departments should introduce relevant policies to guide the expectations of local governments, so that the provinces that have not reformed the sewage levy standards will not give unconditional acceptance to high-pollution high-emission industries in economic development considerations. This will also enable the levy standard to be improved comprehensively, and the decline of eco-efficiency will be mitigated to a certain extent as the transfer of high-pollution and high-emission industries receives restrictions. On the other hand, the relevant departments should also guide the expectations of enterprises in the provinces where the reform is carried out so that they will not take any chances and transfer high-pollution and high-emission enterprises out of the country recklessly; this would make the implementation of the reform of the emission levy standard achieve the reduction in relevant pollutant emissions in the provinces where it is carried out.
