China will stick to its family planning policy as one of its basic national policies and will maintain a relatively low fertility rate on the mainland, said Wang Xia, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

She made the remarks at a work meeting of the commission on Tuesday.

"We have to highlight stability in our work and keep continuity in the country's population policies to strive for a healthy development of the population," she said.

China's total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime — is at around 1.7, far below a minimum 2.1 required to renew generations, data from the commission showed.

Lu Jiehua, a social-demographics professor at Peking University and a member of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said that fine-tuning the population policy was not contradictory to sticking to it as a basic national policy.

"Even if the top authority eases the one-child rule particularly in urban areas, reproduction is still guided by the government," he said.

The population policy has changed at a gradual pace on the mainland and the requirements vary regionally, he added.

In addition to population rules, other issues like management of the migrant population and reproductive health services are also high on the commission's working agenda, according to him.

Wang said that the commission will work hard to help integrate reproductive health services into the national plan to improve people's living conditions.

For example, coverage of free reproductive health examinations before pregnancy will be expanded to all counties on the mainland to help prevent birth defects, she said.