A top Chinese family planning official said on Tuesday that if China has not implemented its family planning policy, its total population would have exceeded 1.7 billion in 2008.

Taking the floor at the 42nd session of the UN Commission on Population and Development, which opened here on Monday, Li Bin, China's minister in charge of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said: "At present, China has a total population of 1.328 billion. Without the implementation of the family planning policy, total population in China would have exceeded 1.7 billion in 2008."

Overpopulation is one of China's primary problems, said Li, adding that thanks to the family planning efforts, the total fertility rate (TFR) of Chinese women has declined from 5.8 in 1970 to below replacement level in 1991 and is now stabilized at around 1.8.

Li said China has achieved relevant Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ahead of time, by raising average life expectancy from 68 at the end of the 1970s to 73 at present, reducing infant mortality rate and mortality rate of children under 5 to 14.9 per thousand and 24 per thousand respectively, and reducing maternal mortality rate to 34.2 per 100,000.

China also increased average per capita education attainment of the population aged 15 and above from 4.5 years to 8.5 years in 2007, and achieved a 99.3-percent coverage rate nationwide with regard to universal access to 9-year compulsory education. The rural poverty population has been reduced from 250 million to 40.07 million, which helped accelerate the global poverty alleviation process. China's rank on Human Development Index (HDI) rose from No.105 in 1990 to No.81 in 2007, the minister said.

China's family planning policy has been in effect for more than three decades. The policy limits most couples to one child in urban areas and two in rural areas, and it has prevented an estimated 400 million births.

The week-long annual session of the Commission of Population and Development this year focused on the contribution of the Program of Action of ICPD, a consensus reached at the Cairo conference in 1994, to the internationally agreed development goals, including the MDGs.

(Xinhua News Agency April 1, 2009)