China still faces a challenging situation in the field of population control, though 90 million families have adopted the one-child policy, said Zhang Weiqing, minister of the State Commission of Population and Family Planning, Monday.

Zhang, in an address at a workshop on family planning, said the decades-old state policy has benefited the whole Chinese nation. In recent years, the average age for couples who gave birth to their first child has become increasingly older, while more and more couples have accepted the certificate for volunteering to have only one child in their life, the official said.

The minister, however, admitted that it is still difficult to change the whole people's traditional concept on birth in a short period of time, due to traditional culture and views, backward productivity, and lack of a perfect social security system in the country.

Under the current birth rate, China's population is expected to reach 1.37 billion by 2010, and 1.46 billion by 2020.

By 2033, the country's population is expected to peak at about 1.5 billion, according to the official.

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2005)