Officials in the southern province of Guangdong will not be promoted if they are found to have violated the country's family planning policies, a senior provincial population and family planning official said.

"All the candidates who have been selected for future promotion will be carefully vetted before they are promoted," said Luo Wenzhi, director of the Guangdong provincial population and family planning commission.

"Officials, particularly major department and city officials, who are found to have given birth to a second child without permission, will have no chance of being further promoted," Luo said at a conference in Guangzhou, Guangdong's provincial capital, on Monday.

The Guangdong Party Commission for Discipline Inspection and the provincial bureau of supervision are also busy amending relevant regulations and rules to expand investigations on local officials' adherence to China's family planning policies, Luo said.

The move comes after a growing number of local Party and government officials have been found to illegally have more than one child, Luo added.

Earlier this year, Luo said that Guangdong has no plans to loosen the country's decades-old family planning policy.

With more than 104 million residents, the prosperous Guangdong province, which borders the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, has surpassed Henan and Shandong provinces to become the most populous province in China.