Vietnam PM Oks Population, Reproductive Health Plan by 2020

The Vietnamese Prime Minister has approved a national strategic population and reproductive health development plan in the 2011-2020 period, the Vietnam News Agency said. Nguyen Van Tan, deputy head of the Health Ministry’s General Department for Population and Family Planning, said the department will continue boosting awareness of local authorities on the plan to achieve these goals.
“These issues are critically important as we all know the matters pertaining to the quality of the population can cause greatly effects on our socio-economic development goals,” Tan added.
The government also outlines 11 targets to maintain the well-being of the population, including maintaining the population increase rate at around 1% in 2015 and to the stable level of 1% or lower in 2020, and raising the human development index to the world medium level by 2020. Under the plan, Vietnam also aims to cut the death rate of under-five children from drowning to 19.3% in 2015 and 16% in 2020 while the death rate of mothers due to pregnancy-related problems will be reduced to 58.3/100,000 babies by 2015 and 52/100,000 in 2020. The plan also includes bettering the reproductive health of migrants, disabled people, HIV-infected people, ethnic minorities and victims of domestic violence and natural disasters. A national teleconference between the government and 63 provinces will be held soon to work out the plan’s implementation. The country’s population is forecast to rise from the current 87 million to 95.3 million by 2019, to 102.7 million by 2029 and 108.7 million by 2049, the General Statistics Office (GSO) said. (vietnamnet.vn Nov 17, baohaiquan.vn Nov 16, vietnamplus.vn Nov 15)