rly 200 million yuan in the production of various contraceptives every year. Now the production of contraceptives in China has basically become self-sufficient.
To ensure that people of child-bearing age can receive required services at any time and in any place, China has established countrywide family planning service networks consisting of hospitals, maternity and child care centres and family planning service stations. Following the principle of catering to grass-roots units, going deep into the countryside, offering services to people's doorsteps and providing conveniences to the people, family planning workers provide people of child-bearing age with guidance, advice and services, and help them select favourable contraceptive methods according to their health and needs. In light of the actual conditions in rural areas, women of child-bearing age there with one child are encouraged to use intrauterine device and either the wife or husband of a couple with two children is encouraged to undergo sterilization, which are safe and effective contraceptive measures favourable to the protection of women's health. Therefore they are more easily accepted by rural couples of child-bearing age. As to those couples who are unsuitable or unwilling to accept such measures, family planning workers guide them to select other contraceptive measures according to their needs. At present, more than 200 million married couples of child-bearing age in China have adopted contraceptive measures, making up about 80 percent of the country's total.
Starting from the 1960s, China distributed contraceptives free of charge, and exempted and reduced the fees for birth control technical services. Since 1988, China has implemented the system of combining the supply of free contraceptives with retail sales in the market, thus widening the supply channels, providing conveniences to the people, satisfying their needs and raising the utilization rate of contraceptives. To ensure that people can get contraceptives in time, specialized organs have been set up or special personnel assigned for this purpose from the provincial and city down to the township and village levels.
The Chinese government is against promoting induced abortion as a means of family planning. China allows women who require induced abortion to have such an operation under safe and reliable conditions. Along with the popularization of the scientific knowledge of family planning and the extensive adoption of contraceptive measures, the number of induced abortions has been on the decline in many places. When China's birth rate drops sharply, the annual ratio between the number of newly born babies and that of induced abortions has retained at around 1:0.3, equivalent to the medium level in the world.
To guarantee the health of babies and mothers, China has made efforts to improve medical and health care conditions and strengthen health care services for women and children while doing a job in family planning. Consequently, the improvement of women's and children's health has also promoted family planning. China has set up health care networks for women and children all over the country. Several thousand maternity and child care centres provide various services, including the general survey, prevention and treatment of women's diseases, consultation on hereditary diseases, examination before marriage, health care for pregnant and postpartum women, new delivery methods, health care for babies and young children, etc. The family planning departments in many places have initiated health-care-at-childbirth services for couples of child-bearing age. In spite of their comparatively backward medical and health care conditions, the health care and family planning departments in some economically underdeveloped regions have organized people to provide services to the people at their doorsteps to protect women and children's health, so that they are highly acclaimed by the people.
Practice has shown that China's population and family planning programme has been crowned with success. But we should a