More than 1 million organizations with over 94 million members
are now providing family planning services in China, sources with
the Family Planning Association of China (FPAC) said in Beijing on
Monday.
On Monday, the FPAC held its sixth national conference to confer
prizes to 1,737 organizations and 3,048 excellent working staffs. A
senior FPAC official said the prize-winning staff made a big
contribution to encouraging people to have less children for a
better-off family, thus maintaining a low growth rate for the
nation's population.
The official pointed out that the Chinese government first
advocated family planning in the mid-1950s when the country faced
an upsurge in population. In the early 1970s, China adopted a
national family planning strategy, asking each family to have only
one child.
The latest statistics from the National Population and Family
Planning Commission (NPFPC) showed that China's
population has been brought under control in the past 5 years, with
the birth rate and natural growth rate dropping, respectively, from
14.03 to 12.29 per thousand and 7.58 to 5.87 per thousand.
However, if China had failed to implement the family planning
policy, China's population would have been nearly 400 million more
than the present figure, which, according to insiders, would have
created enormous pressure and challenge for the national
economy.
On Jan. 6, NPFPC minister Zhang Weiqing told the public that
China will work to limit its mainland population to less than 1.37
billion by 2010. He was quoted as saying that China will face
another upsurge of population growth in the coming five years
because China's first single-child generation is about to enter
reproductive age. This will make it all the more difficult to
maintain a low birth level in the coming years.
Zhang also said China will continue to improve its population
laws in an effort to work out laws and regulations to manage
unbalanced birth sex ratios. Government figures show 119 boys are
born for every 100 girls in the world's most populous nation. About
40 million men may live as frustrated bachelors by 2020.
Pinpointing this, local organizations were urged to make more
efforts to publicize family planning policies to the public,
especially rural residents.
The FPAC official said more specific measures will be taken to
encourage families to have fewer children. People in the rural
areas will be provided with higher-quality family planning
services, and also with poverty-relief projects.
(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2006)