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The current family planning policy in China will maintain unchanged in order to achieve the goal of keeping the nation's population under 1.4 billion until at least the year 2010, Peng Peiyun, vice-chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, reiterated on August 30 in Beijing.

The current family planning policy, which encourages couples to marry late and have fewer children, has proven effective and should be adhered to in the years to come. She further said that keeping the birth rate low is still a hard and long-term task in China.

Peng made the remarks at a symposium to mark the coming into effect of the National Law on Population and Family Planning on September 1.

The law, the first of its kind in China makes clear that Chinese citizens are obligated and empowered to practice family planning.

Governments at all levels must work in line with the legislation to ensure the legal rights of the individuals are not violated, and the citizens must be guaranteed easy access to reproductive health care services.

The Chinese Government made family planning a State policy in 1982. The policy encourages couples in urban areas to have only one child, while rural families may have a second child after four to five years to provide more hands in the home, and ethnic minorities are allowed to have more children because of their lesser numbers.

Data from the State Family Planning Commission shows that without the policy, the total population of China would have been 1.6 billion right now, 300 million more people than the present figure.

The drop in the birth rate has benefited the country economically.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that the GDP per capita in 1999 rose to 6,534 yuan (US$790), 35 per cent higher than it was in 1995. Insiders say that the increase is largely attributed to the lower birthrate.

At the same time, the lower population growth rate means more food for all Chinese. The grain output per capita has reached 407 kilograms, 28 kilograms more than in the Eighth Five-Year Plan period (1991-95). At the end of the 20th century, the world's most populous country was still able to feed its large population.

The NBS report also points out that family planning has also contributed greatly to the improvement of health care and education.

However, population experts have warned that Chinese population will maintain a high growth rate because of the huge base number.

Population in China will keep growing at more than 10 million annually for a number of decades, the experts say.

Therefore, the conflict between population and sustainable development of the economy, society, resources, and environment in China is still quite acute, said Peng.

Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the State Family Planning Commission, said that the law would help ensure the status of family planning as a national policy so that the work of population and family planning can be pushed forward steadily.

And, with the law, the State can further standardize the administrative functions of the government in family planning, the concrete measures adopted by communities, enterprises and non-governmental organizations to carry out the family planning programme, and citizens' rights and duties in family planning, Zhang added.