Beginning this month, rural couples in southwest China's Yunnan Province can receive a 1,000-yuan (US$120) bonus if they sign an agreement to have just one child.

The move is a policy recently adopted by the province in an attempt to bring the ever-swelling population in farming areas under control.

In addition to the cash award, couples who promise to have only a single baby will be granted an exemption from education fees and bonus points will be added to their child's college entrance exam scores.

Future cash benefits are offered as well, including a government pension of up to 750 yuan (US$91) annually when they retire.

Yunnan Province Vice Governor Wu Xiaoqing said they have earmarked 230 million yuan (US$28 million) to meet these commitments.

According to Zhang Yuming, director of the Yunnan Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission, the population of Yunnan topped 43.8 million last year. Currently, the province sees a yearly net increase of 500,000 people, or a birthrate of 9.8 per 1,000. That is about 5 per 1,000 higher than the national average.

Of the 800,000 babies who arrive yearly in Yunnan, 730,000 are born into rural families. More than half are from poverty-stricken areas.

The steady rise in the rural population is attributed to a lack of education among impoverished groups, Zhang said, and this growth hampers the province’s development into a prosperous society.

During an eight-month trial of the program in more than 40 counties, more than 50,000 couples have picked up the certificate awarded to them when they committed to having only one child.

The birthrate in the province is likely to be reduced by 10 percent for the first time. Wu said that by 2020, if the policy is implemented as scheduled, more than 297,000 hectares of farmland will have been saved and social expenditures will have been cut by 26.6 billion yuan (US$3.2 billion).

By then, more than 5.5 million potential births will have been prevented.

(China Daily June 9, 2004)