China will not revoke its three-decade-long family planning policy but will try to put more emphasis on its rewards, said a senior family planning official Thursday.

Pan Guiyu, deputy director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC), said at a press conference here that China will continue the program of "rewarding some rural households practicing family planning", while collecting fines from those who violate the family planning policy.

Last year a program was initiated in certain areas to give cash rewards of no less than 600 yuan on an annual basis to the rural elderly with only one child or two daughters after they turn 60 years old.

Although China has successfully reduced its population by 300 million since the family planning policy was introduced in the late 1970s, it still faces a "grave population picture", she said.

According to statistics form the NPFPC, China's net population increases by eight to 10 million people -- half of the Australian population -- a year, exerting great pressure on the society.

"Therefore, family planning is a basic state policy, not a policy of expedience. Nor our firmness in carrying out it. It will exist and remain unchanged for a long time to come," Pan said.

She said China will extend the cash-rewarding program to 23 provinces, covering the whole country next year, to help farmers change their age-old preference of boys to girls and keep the birth rate low.

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2005)