Family-planning efforts conducted by Chinese rural residents voluntarily have become an important component of China's overall family-planning program, according to Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the State Family Planning Commission.

Speaking at the national work conference on family planning, which concluded on Thursday, Zhang said China encourages voluntary family planning activities in rural areas and has been trying to turn the project from an administrative order into a voluntary choice among the rural population.

The rights of people in deciding their family size should be respected, said Zhang.

During the past five years, farmers in east China's Anhui Province, where rural residents account for the majority of the provincial population, have been encouraged to manage and supervise family planning efforts by themselves.

The move has greatly enhanced the quality of local family-planning endeavors and 85 percent of the population said they were satisfied with the self-regulated method.

In east China's Zhejiang Province where self-regulated family-planning efforts have been implemented for many years, family-planning awareness has become deeply rooted among the local rural population.

Family-planning networks have been extensively established in villages in southwest China's Guizhou Province, where directors are elected in villages to supervise the work.

It is an urgent task for the country's family-planning departments to further popularize the task among China's vast rural population, said Zhang Weiqing.

(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2003)