When the PRC was founded in 1949, China had a population of 541.67 million. Owing to China’s stable society, rapid production development, improvement of medical and health conditions, insufficient awareness of the importance of population growth control and shortage of experience, the population grew rapidly, reaching 806.71 million in 1969. From the 1970s, China had implemented the policy of population increment control and thus the birth rate began to decrease. By 2000, the annual rate of population growth had decreased to less than 17 per thousand. At present, China basically turned into the type of population reproduction in low birth, death and increase.

In line with the requirements of the Outline of National Economic and Social Development During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, adopted at the Fourth Session of the Ninth NPC in March 2001, in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005) the average annual natural increase rate of China’s population will not exceed nine per thousand, and the population of 2005 will be controlled to less than 1.33 billion. By 2010 the population of China will not have exceeded 1.4 billion.