However, a senior official of South China's Guangdong Province, bordering Hong Kong, said that the province will allow its couples to give birth to two children by the year of 2030, when China's total population is expected to decline. On September 25, 1980, the Communist Party of China Central Committee issued an open letter calling for CPC and Communist Youth League members to have only one child in a bid to keep the population below 1.2 billion by 2000 and to improve Chinese people's livelihood. According to official statistics, the country's population reached 1.33 billion by the end of last year. If the birth rate had remained at the 1970s levels, the population would have reached 1.7 billion now.

Three decades since the family planning policy was implemented, 400 million births have been prevented, contributing to an 8.6 percent increase in China's per capita GDP. Vice Premier Li Keqiang said earlier this week that China would stick to its national family planning policy and advance the balanced development of the population in the long term.

Source: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7150333.html