After achieving stable and low birth rate, China must shift from controlling the population number to optimizing population structure in its population and family planning work, said Gu Shengzu, deputy governor of Hubei Province and an expert on population economy.

Gu made the remark at a seminar marking the "World Population Day" which falls on July 11. Gu said that China now faces six major problems in optimizing population structure.

--Serious gender imbalance in newborns. The country's fifth population census conducted in 2000 showed that the ratio between male and female reached 119:92, which surpassed 130 in provinces such as Jiangxi, Guangdong and Henan;

--Population with born defects remains high. Currently, China sees 800,000 to 1,200,000 people born with defects annually;

--Population aging. Developed countries like Britain used 80 years to transform from an adult society to an aged society, with its per capita GDP increasing from 5,000 to 10,000 US dollars during the period; while China completed the transformation in 20 years with per capital GDP standing at only 1,000 dollars. Some cities, like Dalian and Shanghai, got aged before getting rich.

--Social problems caused by population migration, such as children left behind in rural areas by migrant workers.

--Children of migrant population. The biggest problem is their education and they are facing the danger of being marginalized. Schools simply constructed for children of migrant workers can hardly compare with government-run schools, and even if the latter open to them, their parents can hardly afford due to their income gap with urban dwellers.

--Serious impact on population security by infectious diseases such as AIDS. AIDS in China has spread from high-risk groups to common people, and has entered a period of fast growth.

The world population reached 5 billion on July 11, 1987. To rouse serious concern from world governments and the public over the population question, the United States decided in 1990 to set July 11 as the "World Population Day". By now the world population has reached 6.38 billion. As the world's most populous country, China saw a population near 1.3 billion by the end of 2003.

By People's Daily Online