Population policy.

The provisional results of the 2000 Population Census, published by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, gave some encouraging as well as disturbing findings. The survey essentially found that we, as a nation, have done quite a good job in slowing down population growth, but a rather appalling one in redistributing the population across the archipelago.

The results of the survey, once the final version comes out, should be taken into consideration when drafting government policies. No policy would be effective unless it took into account the changing demographic conditions. The findings of the 2000 Population Census tells us that some existing policies must be discarded, while others continued, but with some fine-tuning.

One …