Guideline to accelerate China's household registration reform

BEIJING - A new central government guideline is set to step up reform of China's household registration system and mark a new step in its urbanization drive, Shanghai Securities News reported on Monday.

The State Council, China's Cabinet, will issue the guideline soon, said Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the Central Agricultural Work Leading Team, a top decision-making body for agriculture-related work.

Having been approved by the central leading team for "comprehensively deepening reform," the guideline is awaiting deliberation by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Chen said, without disclosing any of its details.

China unveiled its urbanization plan for the 2014-2020 period in March, in an effort to steer the country's urbanization onto a human-centered and environmentally friendly path.

Under the plan, China will fully remove household restrictions in towns and small cities, gradually ease restrictions in mid-sized cities, and set reasonable conditions for settling in big cities while strictly controlling the population in megacities.

China's permanent urban residents accounted for 53.7 percent of the total population in 2013, with the number of migrant workers at 270 million.