Hua Jianmin, state councilor and secretary-general of the State Council, has said that China should continue to follow its family planning policy and push forward family planning reform to build a new work mechanism.

In a letter to a conference here on the construction of a new mechanism for national population and family planning, Hua said that the Eleventh Five-year Plan period starting from 2006 is a key period to facilitate population and family planning reform, which requires the country to keep the current family planning policy in place to maintain a low birth rate.

Hua urged governments and family planning commissions at various levels to deal with the population issue by focusing on anall-round development of humans, sticking to the practice that government leaders take the overall responsibility of family planning, and keeping the family planning network unchanged.

In the early 1970s, a Chinese couple had an average of 5.8 children. The number has since dropped to 1.8, placing China in the world's low-birth-rate club. But given China's large population base of 1.3 billion, keeping the birth rate at a low level remains a very important mission in the country.

Hua said China should step up its efforts to improve a new family planning work mechanism, which emphasizes management according to law, self-governance of villagers or urban residents, quality services, policy impetus and a comprehensive management based on achievements made in the Tenth Five-year Plan period from2001 to 2005.

During that period, Hua said, population and family planning commissions have achieved sound results on state population development strategy study and population planning under the guidance of the state population development policies oriented towards 2020.

The Sept. 16-18 meeting will study progress and experience during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period on family planning reform and new mechanism construction, and put forward the goal that most regions in the country should set up such a mechanism by 2010 as away to properly handle the population issue in a comprehensive way.

(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2005)