 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 also clearly see that there is still imbalance in development in various areas, instability in fertility levels in many regions, and the high birth rate in others. The working style and service level concerning family planning in most rural regions, especially in some economically underdeveloped areas, remain to be improved. In the process of establishing the socialist market economic system, family planning work is faced with new situations and new problems. There are also problems in the quality and structure of population that should not be neglected. These problems include the high sex ratio and the growing population aging. Therefore, China is still confronted with a severe challenge on issues of population and development. To carry out family planning and population control, and improve population quality remain an arduous and urgent task of strategic significance.
The reform targeted at establishing a socialist market economic system is further promoting the development of social productive forces. At the same time, it has created favourable social and economic conditions for optimizing the family planning work. The Chinese government will unswervingly continue to carry out the basic national policy of family planning, and promote a coordinated development between population on one hand and the economy, society, resources and environment on the other. On one hand, we will adhere to and continually improve the basic experience that suits China's specific conditions and that has proved effective in practice; on the other, we should adapt ourselves to the new situation, emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unceasingly deepen the reform, to improve the level of family planning work. The practice of pursuing family planning mainly through administrative means and campaigns in some areas must be resolutely changed. The emphasis should be put on the publicity and education, contraception and regular work. Quality service in family planning should be provided to the people of child-bearing age, particular