BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- China has made headways on population development, but a number of challenges remain, said a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) official.

    Ronny Lindstrom, deputy representative of the UNFPA China Office, said China has made many accomplishments such as improved mother and child health, access to reproductive health services and contraceptives in China's population programme since the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, but "a number of concerns related to China's population and development remain".

    In a speech delivered Saturday at Northwest China Population and Development Forum in Qinghai Province, Lindstrom said that some of the Principles of the Convention for Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action, both of which China is a party to, particularly those related to individual's control of their own fertility, have yet to be fully met.

    "Hence, there is still work to be done to reach the goals that China has set in the 2002 Population and Family Planning Law," he said.

    He also noted that there is continued problem of an imbalanced sex ratio at birth that is getting attention by the Chinese government. According to the fifth national census, China's sex ratio at birth is as high as 116.9, which means 116.9 males per 100 females, a very high figure comparing with the "normal" sex ratio at birth between 103 and 107.

    Furthermore, the representative from UNFPA warned that continuedlow fertility is likely to cause a shortage of labor after year 2025.

    "Experiences from other countries have shown that continued low fertility can be a serious threat to economic growth," he said.

    He said that planning for this needs to be done now and if fertility control is not relaxed, tremendous investment in the social sector will be needed to prepare the labor force for the increased quality and productivity that will be needed to sustain growth with a shrinking labor force. Enditem