China has made dramatic progress in realizing UN millennium development targets and goals for its children, and plays a leading role for youth in the Asian and Pacific region, a senior UNICEF official said yesterday.

If China,the most populated country in the world, achieves those goals, it will be of great significance to the region, said Mehr Khan, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) regional director for East Asia and the Pacific at the mid-term review meeting of US$100 million China-UNICEF Programme for Co-operation, which concludes today.

About 600 million of the world's children live in the East Asia and Pacific region, about 60 per cent of them in China, she explained.

Enrollment rates for primary school is 98 per cent in China, which is higher than the average 90 per cent for the region,the director said.

Great efforts will be made to reach the people who live in remote areas in China who have had no access to education, Khan noted.

UNICEF statistics indicate that from 1990 to 1999, illiteracy in China was wiped out among 27.26 million female youths and middle-aged people, with the female illiteracy rate dropping by 10 percentage points.

The regional director said, however, China still faces austere challenges concerning the number of HIV-AIDS cases, a severe threat to the children.

The increasing rate of HIV infections is worrying, she said.

The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in China is between 800,000 to 1.5 million, which would imply a prevalence of almost 0.1 per cent, experts said.

The epidemic is spreading to the general population mainly through heterosexual transmission and mismanagement of blood donations, and unsafe injections.

Fundamental changes have taken place during the past three years both in China and the world, said Yi Xiaozhun, assistant minister of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

At the same time, the trend of economic globalization and rapid development of information and high-tech has created unprecedented opportunities for the living standards to improve for children, he added.

China and UNICEF have worked together,Yi said.

"UNICEF brings us 'seed money' and is a 'catalyst,''' he said. "At the same time, it plays a role as a window and bridge to connect China with the outside world.''

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