With its economic, healthcare and educational achievements, Vietnam has remarkably improved the quality of its population, an official said on December 20.

Speaking at a press conference in response to the national action month for population and Vietnam ’s Population Day (December 26), General Director of the General Population Department Duong Quoc Trong said Vietnam’s human development index (HDI) rose from 0.690 in 2000 to 0.725 in 2009, hitting the projected target in the 2001-2010 Vietnam population strategy.

The country has also achieved its birth reduction and birth replacement rate targets. The nation’s population growth rate dropped to 1.1 percent in 2009 from 1.5 percent 10 years earlier.

Vietnam already reached the birth replacement rate in 2005 and its population is estimated at 87 million by the end of 2010.

However, Trong noted Vietnam is still among middle HDI countries, as its healthy life expectancy or the average number of years a person might live in good health is just 66, ranking 116 out of 182 countries worldwide in 2009.

Population work will face more challenges during the 2011-2020 period, he said, referring to the fact that the fatality rate among under-one-year-old infants remains high in several regions and the number of children suffering from autism, diabetes and obesity is increasing.

The ratio of newborn boys to girls is growing rapidly, reaching 111/100 last year, while the Vietnamese population is ageing, the official elaborated.

Vietnam is now completing its legal documents and improving population management work in an effort to keep the sex ratio at birth no more than 113 by 2015 and 115 by 2020, and restrain its population to not exceed 93 million and 98 million in those years, respectively.

Source: VOV