The China Population and Development Country Report was published on Tuesday at the on-going International Forum on Population and Development held in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

The report has nine parts, including population dynamics and development strategy; reproductive health and family planning; poverty alleviation and development; HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care; adolescent sexual and reproductive health; reduction of maternal and infant morality; empowerment of women and gender issues; role of non-governmental organizations; and official development assistance and global development partnership.

Population development strategy

Owing to its family planning policy starting from the 1970s, China has lowered its fertility rate to the level of developed countries, said the report.

By reducing fertility, China has successfully brought excessive population growth under control.

The birth rate and natural increase rate declined from 21.06 per thousand and 14.39 per thousand in 1990 to 12.41 per thousand and 6.01 per thousand in 2003. The total fertility rate remains below a replacement level and the contraceptive prevalence rate keeps around 83 percent, the report said.

In China, population and development planning have grown in importance as an integral component of national socioeconomic development.

At the annual summit on population, resources and environment convened by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 2004, population and development strategy research and planning were given top priority in the field of population and family planning.

Through the legislation of the Population and Family Planning Law, which went into effect on Sept. 1, 2002, China enhanced the authority and authenticity of population planning and announced a human-oriented, rights-based approach.

In 2003, the State Family Planning Commission was renamed National Population and Family Planning Commission, taking on a new responsibility of research on population and development strategy.

According to the report, a state-level research of population and development strategy is going on to promote balanced development among human beings, society, economy, resources, and the environment in a sustainable way.

Reproductive health

Reproductive health promotion has been highlighted it China's family planning program since its introduction following the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo a decade ago.

China has made great efforts to further international exchanges and cooperation to improve China's RH/FP (reproductive health/family planning) program, and promote the development of global population program, according to the report.

According to the Cairo Conference, reproductive health is the commitment to meeting the broad reproductive health needs of both men and women throughout the life cycle. Key areas include safe delivery, prenatal and postnatal care, infertility treatment and family planning.

The past decade has witnessed China's achievement in the RH/FP program promotion.

China and United Nations Population Fund have jointly launched a RH/FP project in protecting civil rights, improving women's reproductive health, caring for adolescents' needs for reproductive health, promoting gender equality, preventing HIV/AIDS and reducing maternal and child mortality.

Collaboration with WHO has helped China improve its family planning research network and the level of science and technology. It also advanced the reproductive health promotion program featuring healthy baby promotion.

China became in November 1997 a member of Partners in Population and Development (PPD) -- the only alliance of developing countries in the population field, and was elected in June 2002 as chair of the executive committee of PPD.

By sending senior officials to attend the annual meetings of PPD, China shares experiences and explores appropriate ways for population and RH/FP with other developing countries.

China has trained nearly 1,000 RH/FP managers and service providers for other developing countries and also sent people to those countries for training. The RH/FP quality of care project supported by the Ford Foundation has expanded from 11 counties at the beginning to present 827 counties, or one-third of the country's total.

But reproductive health for disadvantaged group, including women, impoverished people and migrant populations has remained a pressing issue in China. According to the report, China will strengthen international exchange to learn the experience of other countries.

China will pay special attention to the poverty-stricken central and western regions and improve their awareness and capability so as to raise the overall level of China's RH/FP program, according to the report.

HIV/AIDS prevention

The Chinese government remarkably increased its budget for HIV/AIDS prevention and control annually, according to the report.

The report said in 2001, the central government substantially increased its budget for HIV/AIDS prevention and control annually from 15 million yuan (US$1. 81 million) to 100 million yuan (US$12.09 million). In 2003, this allocation jumped again to 390 million yuan (US$47.16 million). In 2001, 1.25 billion yuan (US$150 million) from national bonds, combined with 1 billion yuan (US$120 million) in matching funds from local governments, were contributed to the construction of blood banks and equipment purchase in the central and western parts of China.

The report said the government has created an express path to expedite the examination and approval of imported anti-retroviral drugs as well as for relevant pharmaceutical research and development, and it has granted duty-free clearance for imported anti-retroviral drugs.

Since mid-1990s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China has been increasing dramatically. According to the initial analysis of a national epidemiological survey conducted in 2003, there are 840,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, of whom 80,000 are AIDS patients.

The number of HIV-infected people in China has ranked the second in Asia and the fourteenth in the world. In terms of the expected pattern of HIV transmission and spread of infection, the epidemic in China is on the verge of wide proliferation from high-risk populations to the general population.

It is estimated that, without effective measures of prevention and treatment, the total figure of the HIV/AIDS infected in China would possibly reach 10 million by 2010. China faces a severe situation. The report said in 2005, China expects that 100 percent of middle schools and universities will have incorporated prevention and control of HIV/AIDS into the curriculum.

People's awareness and knowledge about HIV/AIDS prevention should be significantly improved in both rural and urban areas, especially among most vulnerable groups. There will be progress in removing the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS that impedes public understanding and participation in the solutions to the epidemic.

The report said work on HIV/AIDS Comprehensive Care and Treatment Pilots should be done in a down-to-earth way. Currently, the 127 County Community-based Comprehensive China Cares Pilot sites basically include larger counties with high levels of HIV/AIDS infection or great danger of the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China. Key areas and even HIV/AIDS prevalence across the country should be under control through comprehensive prevention and treatment efforts.

The report said there is a need to strengthen research and development of anti-retroviral drugs, to strengthen the medical assistance for HIV/AIDS treatment and care and to strengthen capacity to provide AIDS patients with free anti-retroviral drugs.

Reduction of maternal and infant morality

China has identified reduction of maternal and child mortality rates over the past decades, achieving the goal set by the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Program of Action ahead of schedule, according to the report.

The report said that in 2002, monitoring at 116 sites showed that maternal mortality rate was declined year by year, compared to 64.8 per 100,000 live births in 1994 to 43.2 per 100,000 live births in 2002.

The under-five mortality rate was also dropped from 49.6 per thousand in 1994 to 34.9 per thousand in 2002.

These two factors indicate that China has realized the goal set by the ICPD program of action earlier than it urged that by 2015, which requires that all countries should make efforts to reduce the under-five mortality below 45 per thousand.

However, the report pointed out that certain laws and regulations are not fully observed and enforced in some localities due to inadequate attention from leading officials.

Another constrain is that funding and medical supports are insufficient in some poverty-stricken regions and households.

Moreover, regional disparities of the under-five mortality rates are quite obvious, in which rural areas are higher than urban areas and inland regions are far ahead of seashore areas.

Poverty alleviation

The past decade saw a sharp decline in number of rural poverty in China, but its urban poverty became a matter of concern, said the report.

The report said the number of those living in rural poverty fell from 80 million people by the end of 1993 to 29 million in 2003, which represented a decrease from 8.7 percent of rural population to 3.1 percent.

With ongoing changes in China's economic system, problems of urban poverty are a matter of concern. In 2003, an estimated number of 22.48 million urban residents had incomes below the basic standard of living. The largest proportion of urban poor is women and children.

The investment of the central government in poverty reduction work increases annually with the result that all poverty reduction grants and funds have risen from nearly 9.8 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) in 1994 to some 30 billion yuan (US$3.6 billion) or so in 2003. Similarly, local governments have concentrated more funds on poverty reduction.

Since 1995, over 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) has been invested in the nine-year compulsory education in poverty-stricken areas. During the implementation, special attention has been paid to women and children.

Since the largest part of poor people are in western regions, the Chinese government adopted a Western Development Strategy in 1998 to stimulate economic growth and poverty reduction in these regions. Funding priority is given to western regions in such items as infrastructure, protection of ecological resources and the environment and tapping of natural resources.

An urban poverty reduction mechanism has been set up to address the issues of the poverty in China's urban areas. Urban poverty differs from rural poverty and results primarily from changes in the structure of China's economy and from resulting pressures on employment.

Several projects and systems have been initiated in urban areas, including a re-employment project, basic old age support insurance, health care insurance, unemployment insurance, on-job injury insurance for staff and workers, parental health insurance and minimum income relief for urban residents.

During the period of 1998 to 2003, the central government allocated 73.1 billion yuan (US$8.8 billion) to ensure the basic living standard of workers laid off from state-owned enterprises, enabling 4.4 million job losers to be re-employed.

By the end of 2003, there were 103.73 million people who were covered by various types of unemployment insurance. Governments at various levels provided a total of 15.1 billion yuan (US$1.8 billion) to subsidize a basic living standard for those in need.

(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2004)