
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 15, 1995                   TAG: 9502160022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BEIJING                                LENGTH: Short

`CITIZEN 1.2 BILLION' EXPECTED IN CHINA

The People's Republic of China says it has too many people, and the expected birth of its 1,200,000,000th citizen is highlighting new efforts to do something about it.

Population Day comes today as officials in the world's most populous nation devise ways to make population control more attractive to the masses. The nation instituted a policy of limiting births in the mid-1970s and has enforced it unevenly since then.

Today also is the day statisticians predicted that Chinese citizen No. 1.2 billion would be born.

``It's still not easy to be optimistic about the population situation we are facing, and family-planning work is still formidable,'' Vice Premier Zou Jiahua told reporters Tuesday.

China's family-planning program is weak in many areas, especially in the countryside, Zou acknowledged. He called population control the ``difficult and urgent duty'' of the Communist Party and all Chinese citizens.

Most Chinese couples are allowed only one child, though some rural couples are permitted two. Even though the rate of population increase has fallen to 11 percent from nearly 26 percent in 1970, there are still so many women of child bearing age that the population is growing rapidly.

Zou said China's fast-growing wealth still leaves the average person without enough, given that the country's population increases by 21 million people each year. Without the family-planning policy, China would have had 1.2 billion people in 1986, officials say. China says its population will be held under 1.3 billion by 2000 and reach 1.6 billion around 2050.

- Associated Press

by CNB