Capital to continue family planning policy

Beijing authorities are likely to continue with its family planning policies at least for the short term, despite concerns over the country's growing aged population, a senior municipal official has said.

"I think family planning as a fundamental national policy will exist for another 20 years, when the country's population reaches a projected peak of 1.5 billion," Deng Xingzhou, chief of the capital's family planning commission, said on Monday.

"We have set a goal to keep the capital's population under 18 million by 2020, but based on current growth, it is sure to exceed that," he said.