The 2001-2010 National Program of Action for the Development of Children (NPA) has been approved by the State Council, and will take effect soon, according to a press
conference held by the State Council Information Office here Friday.

The new NPA, with the theme of promoting children development, focuses on building children's overall qualities to provide talented personnel for China's modernization drive in the 21st century, according to Xu Shaoshi, deputy secretary-general of the State Council.

There are four main subjects in the new NPA -- children and health, children and education, children and the environment, and children and legal protection. The NPA has put forward 18 major goals, 55 supportive indicators for the next ten years for the survival, protection, development and participation of children, and 66 strategies and measures for realizing the goals.

In 1991, the Chinese government signed two internationally acknowledged documents, namely the "World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children" and the "Plan of Action for Implementing the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children in the 1990s", and subsequently formulated the "National Program of Action for Child Development in China in the 1990s" in 1992.

China has achieved great progress in protecting children's rights and improving the conditions for child development, said Xu.

The new NPA will serve as the guidelines for national action for children development in the early part of the new century, to further promote healthy and sustainable children development, Xu said.