China will work harder to ensure its population does not exceed 1.4
billion before 2010, the minister of
the State Family Planning
Commission said Monday.
The government has been promoting the use of contraceptives through
publicity and educational campaigns and by improving
family-planning services, minister Zhang Weiqing told the ongoing
fifth Asia-Pacific Conference on Population held in the Thai
capital Bangkok.
The minister said the government has mapped out a Programme of
Action for Population and Development in China, which aims to
create a favorable population environment for the country's
economic and social development.
The fundamental targets of the programme include maintaining steady
economic growth, controlling population growth, enhancing people's
quality of life, protecting natural resources, and boosting
sustainable economic and social development.
However, the minister noted that the population problem could still
be an obstacle to China's overall development.
He
predicted that China's population would increase by an average of
10 million a year by 2010. The number would not fall until it
reached a peak of 1.6 billion in the middle of the 21st
century.
The country has a large population of working age, which is
expected to peak at 900 million in the next few decades. This peak
would impose pressure on economic development and the job market,
with unemployment rates bound to rise.
Zhang also said China will expand its family-planning co-operation
with international organizations on a wider scale and in a more
transparent environment now that it is in the World Trade
Organization, thus contributing more to the stability of the
world's population.
He
said that increased opportunities to keep in touch with
international communities would greatly boost the country's
exchanges and co-operation with global peers in the fields of
reproductive health care, the export of contraceptives, and the
prevention and cure of sexually transmitted diseases.
China's efforts in population control over the past few decades
have been widely recognized by the international community, said
Zhang.
Since the 1990s, China has co-operated with about 30 countries and
set up a donor fund of more than US$200 million.
Family planning and reproductive health projects financed by the
United Nations Population Fund have been implemented in more than
30 counties and cities throughout China, not only improving the
working efficiency of the pilot regions but also helping the
international community understand more about China's
family-planning policy.
"Being a developing country with the largest population, the
fertility of China has a direct bearing on the stability and
prosperity of the world,'' said Zhang. "China will continue its
family-planning efforts to keep population growth low and bring
more benefits to its people.''
(China Daily December 18, 2002)