Ministry says no timetable set for introduction of two-child policy

The National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) denied Thursday that China would further relax its family planning policy to allow all couples to have a second child by the end of this year. Some media reported Wednesday that the two-child policy is to be applied as early as the end of 2015, citing researchers who participated in a survey launched by the NHFPC in March. The survey, results of which were not made public, consulted health and family planning experts on whether the government should further relax the family planning policy, and most experts said yes, according to the Shanghai-based China Business News. China relaxed its decades-old one-child policy in late 2013, allowing couples to have a second child if either parent was a single child. But the number of couples wanting to have a second child has been lower than expected, and experts think it is necessary to fully relax the family planning policy. However, the NHFPC told Beijing Morning Post on Thursday that the media reports are untrue and there was no timetable for further relaxing the current policy. China saw 16.9 million recorded births in 2014, up 470,000 than the previous year, which showed that the current second-child policy is having effect, the NHFPC said at a news conference on July 10. A total of 1.45 million Chinese couples had submitted applications for a second child as of the end of May, with an average of 80,000 to 90,000 applications each month, the NHFPC data showed. China saw a third consecutive annual drop in its workforce in 2014, with 3.7 million less working age people than the previous year, data released from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Despite the denial by the NHFPC, some demographers and sociologies believe that the restrictions on having a second child will be fully lifted, considering that the current one is only a transitional reform measure. They believe that a new policy will be issued at the beginning of the 13th five-year plan period starting 2016.