Beijing is bulging: the city's population has exceeded 17 million. This number is only 1 million away from reaching the ceiling the city government has set for 2020.

The figure breaks down into 12.04 million holders of Beijing "hukou", or household registration certificates, and 5.1 million floating residents. The Ministry of Public Security reported these figures during a workshop on the country's migrant worker management on Monday.

Beijing municipal government announced last year that authorities would limit the city's population to 18 million by 2020.

Overpopulation is putting considerable pressure on the city's natural resources and environment. And experts have warned the current population, 17 million calculated at the end of June, is already 3 million more than Beijing's resources can feed.

Given this year's baby boom, triggered by the superstitious belief that babies born in the Chinese year of the pig are lucky, analysts say there is little hope for an immediate slowdown in Beijing's population growth. This comes despite the predicted post-Beijing Olympics lull and already soaring housing prices that have driven some Beijingers to boom towns in the neighboring Hebei Province and Tianjin Municipality.

Migrants, especially surplus rural laborers who have taken up non-agricultural jobs in the city, have forcefully contributed to the population explosion in recent years.

About 200 million migrants are working in cities across China.

Last year, the Ministry of Public Security proposed that police authorities in the migrants' home provinces should send "resident police officers" to cities to help maintain public security inside major migrant communities. Many of them are slums that are prone to violence, robberies, drugs and gambling.

Resident policemen are currently at work in three cities: Dongguan, a manufacturing center in Guangdong Province, Binzhou of the central Hunan Province and Guigang of the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The ministry has also demanded that all cities complete a migrant worker information system to manage migrant data by the end of 2009.

(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2007)