Mainland couples who deliver extra babies in Hong Kong will be fined for violating China's family-planning policy, a Guangdong official said yesterday, echoing Hong Kong's efforts to turn away mainland pregnant women.

If mainland couples give birth to extra children, they will face fines no matter where they deliver the babies, Zhang Feng, director of the Guangdong Commission of Population and Family Planning, has warned, Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po reported.

Guangdong issued fines to several couples last year. If the parents are government officials, they will be removed from their posts and sacked from the Party, Zhang reiterated.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong authorities are mulling whether to ban non-local women from delivering babies in public hospitals, said York Chow, Hong Kong's secretary for Food and Health, the report said.

The Hospital Authority is discussing the annual quota of mainland women giving birth in public hospitals. If necessary, the quota will drop from this year's 3,400, and non-local expectant mothers might be prohibited from giving birth in public hospitals completely in order to ease pressure on already strained medical resources.

The quota will be announced in April.

Mainland women have chosen to give birth in Hong Kong partly to circumvent the government's one-child policy and also to gain the right of abode in China's most developed and wealthiest city. A broad provision in Hong Kong's Basic Law grants Hong Kong citizenship to any Chinese born there.

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