The capital city's family planning policy will not be readjusted, at least in the short term, officials from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Population and Family Planning confirmed yesterday.

This is in response to circulated requests over whether Beijing will ease rules for couples who wish to have a second child. Several other cities including Shanghai, which fears its aging society, eased such rules recently.

China implemented its one-child policy three decades ago, especially in urban areas. Only couples in certain categories can have a second child.

At present, Beijing couples who want a second child must meet two principles prescribed in the Municipal Population and Family Planning Regulation. First, both mother and father must be single children themselves. Second, they must prove their first child has some kind of disability.

An anonymous official from the commission stressed that these requirements are still effective and no big change is likely to occur in the near future.

The current regulation, which took effect in September of last year, is the newest edition. The new one made some minor adjustments to the old one, which was issued in 1991.

For example, the old regulation stipulated that a couple could only apply for a second child at least four years after the birth of their first child and the woman should be no less than 28 years old. But in the new one, couples who want to have a second child just need to meet either one of the two requirements.

Shanghai revised its policy and relaxed its restrictions of the requirements a couple needed to meet to have a second child. The requirement of the four-year interval was removed from the regulation.

Official Shanghai family planning sources say that the number of couples who applied to have a second child has seen a dramatic increase since the new policy was adopted.

And experts in Beijing also called for the quick adjustment of the family planning policy in the future.

Nearly 100 million families in China have single child, accounting for almost one-third of the total families, according to Mu Guangzong, a researcher with the Population and Development Studies Centre affiliated with Renmin University of China.

(China Daily 10/21/2004 page3)