XINING, Qinghai Province, Aug. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese population program is not merely a fertility control program as many people believe, but "much more than that" with a number of "positive developments", a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said.

    "Many observers see the Chinese population program as a fertility control program only. It is much more than that and there are a number of positive developments since the inception of the policy in 1980," said Ronny Lindstrom, UNFPA's deputy representative, at Aug. 6-8 Northwest China Forum on Population and Development held in Xining, the capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province.

    Such developments include continued improvement of population health, particularly reproductive health, improved employment, standard of living, legal systems, including complaint systems, strong emphasis on human-centered development, new emphasis on services to clients and universal provision of contraceptives, he said, adding they may not only be due to the population program, but are clearly related.

    He said China has also managed to bring its huge population to a fertility rate of below replacement.

    The U.N. official cautioned, however, that China still faces several challenges as its population will continue to grow until 2020 and its health and education needs further improvement.

    Besides, offering services for migrants remains a challenging task and lack of social security of many people, the increasingly aging population structure and an imbalance of sex ratio are getting attention from the government, he acknowledged.

    "Perhaps the greatest challenge, however, is that of long-term planning and economic growth," he said. "Demographic changes do not take place overnight and it necessitates careful long-term planning-which is not easy.

    "The time to plan for this is now," he said, calling on government decision-makers not to look at issues in five, 10 or 20years, but "look beyond".

    "Maintaining a balanced population size and fertility rate without huge fluctuations -up or-down may be the price of continued development, stability, and a xiaokang (relatively affluent) society," the UN official said. Enditem