A meeting was held in Hanoi on December 26 to mark Vietnam’s Population Day (December 26) by the Ministry of Health and the Hanoi Municipal People’s Committee in the presence of State President Nguyen Minh Triet.

According to a report from Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu, Vietnam has fulfilled 101 percent the set plan for the number of contraceptive users. The birth rate was reduced by 0.25 percent and the total birth rate stood at 2.06 percent, down 0.03 percent from the 2006 level.

Despite achieving the noteworthy results, the country failed to reach the National Assembly’s 2007 target of reducing the birth rate to below 0.3 percent. This will pose a great challenge to population and family planning activities in 2008.

In his speech, State President Triet praised the country’s significant achievements in population and family planning and the contributions by population staff from the central to local levels.

Over the past 15 years, remarkable progress has been made in population activities as the country’s population growth has fallen from 2 percent to 1.3 percent. This helps in large part to boost socio-economic development and can be seen as an evidence of the great efforts by both population and family planning staff.

Vietnam has a high population growth with a large density. Since 1961, the Vietnamese population has trebled, reaching 86 million and it will continue to increase 1 million/year. In the face of this situation, Mr Triet has underscored the need to maintain the sustainability of the “delivery of no third child” movement, which has not yet been implemented as effectively as expected.

It is essential to make the population better aware of family planning activities and Party members, cadres and people from all walks of life need to fulfil all set targets. In addition, it is imperative to promote close co-ordination among various sectors and social organisations at all levels in order to integrate population programmes into other programmes of healthcare and socio-economic development, said Mr Triet.

How to keep population growth at less than 89 million by 2010 is the top priority of Vietnam’s population and a main family planning target, said Health Minister Nguyen Quoc Trieu.