More than 1.35 million rural elderly will benefit from a pilot cash-rewarding program this year, Pan Guiyu, deputy director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC), said in Beijing Thursday.

At a press conference of the State Council Information Office, Pan said the pilot program of "rewarding some rural households practicing family planning" will be extended to 23 provinces, 12 counties in Tibet and 22 cities or counties in east China's Shandong Province this year, where 930,000 people will receive 600-million-yuan (US$72 million) cash rewards given by the central and provincial government.

In eastern and southern China, provinces or municipalities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong will reward 420,000 people by financing the project by themselves, she said.

China launched the pilot project in 2004 to give a cash reward of no less than 600 yuan per year to the rural elderly with only one child or two daughters when they turn 60 years old. The reward will last for the rest of their lives.

Last year, more than 310,000 farmers in five provinces where the pilot project was first launched received around 200 million yuan (some US$24 million) in cash rewards for having only one child or two daughters in their families from both the central and provincial government.

In economically developed eastern provinces, where the pilot project is financed on their own, approximately 500,000 people received cash rewards.

At present, the central budget covers some 80 percent of the reward allowances paid in China's less developed western regions, while in the better-developed eastern coastal regions all the reward money is paid from the local budgets.

In southern Guangdong Province, which borders Hong Kong and ranks among the country's richest areas, the local government is paying 960 yuan (US$115 ) a year to every farmer who has only one child or two daughters.

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2005)