'Family planning rules may need some adjustment'

China may be ready to fine-tune, if not to end, its 30-year-old family planning policy - rules that helped fuel the country's economic miracle by preventing 400 million births, but which brought their own challenges, including an aging population.

Adjustments, such as the encouragement of urban couples comprising two only-children to have a second child, and the abolition of the four-year interval between births in the countryside, have been made across the country in recent years.

"We've noticed the challenges and are researching a comprehensive and sustainable policy, which covers not only the size, but the structure, quality, and distribution of the population," Zhao Baige, deputy director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, told China Daily.