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The population of South China's Guangdong Province has hit 110 million,
resulting in a heavy burden for the province.
Guangdong has replaced Central China's Henan
Province as the most populous
province in the country, Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua
announced during the third session of the Ninth Guangdong People's
Political Consultative Conference on January 21.
The figure includes 79 million registered permanent residents and 31
million migrants who have lived in Guangdong for more than six months.
Referring to the reason for the sharply increasing
population, Huang said even though Henan and Sichuan are the two most
populous provinces in China, many residents from the two provinces have
come to Guangdong in recent years looking for work, and making Guangdong's
population swell
.
"Six disallowables" have been lifted by the
Guangdong Provincial Labour and Social Security Bureau in January. The
"disallowables" is a 1995 decree which forbids the recruitment of workers
from other provinces during the month after Lunar New Year to control a
huge influx
of migrant
workers.
Zhang Xiang, an official with the bureau said the move would ease
labour shortages which Guangdong has been suffering from over several
months.
"It probably drew many more migrants to Guangdong," Xiao Bin, a
professor of Sun Sat-sen University said.
The figures prove Xiao's prediction. After the Spring Festival holidays
began, an influx appeared in Guangzhou Railway Station. Sources with the
station said about 50,000 passengers arrived in Guangzhou every day since
the peak of transport began on January 25, 10,000 more than the
corresponding period for previous years.
Guangdong's migrant population is the largest in China, leading to
pressure on public security.
In 2004, over 510,000 criminal cases were recorded at the Guangdong
Provincial Department of Public Security, which means over 1,200 cases
each day on average, said Liang Guoju, director of the department.
Liang said about 80 per cent of the cases were committed by migrants,
and tackling the cases was a great pressure for him.
The ratio of policemen to population in the province is 12.9 to 10,000,
that is to say, a policeman has to secure 775 people. The ratio is lower
than those of Beijing and Shanghai.
The increase of population is much faster than that of policemen, said
Liang.
Xiao said though education, employment and medical treatment were also
facing challenges for the general population, public security deserves
much more attention, and it is having an influence on the area's stability
and growth.
Yu Senquan, an officer of the Guangdong Provincial Family Planning
Commission said they could not stem the flow of migrants from entering
Guangdong. What they can do is to control the population by family
planning, such as stipulating every family can only have one child.
Yu said if a couple of the province had an extra child, they would be
fined.
The fine is levied according to the couple's income. Generally, they
are levied three times their total income of the previous year.
Yu said the policy also applied to the migrants. The commission will do
more to control the population in 2005, he said.
(China Daily) | 
Updated: 2005-02-16 10:27
