TheCable

China has announced an end to its one-child policy, Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.

The agency said the decision was taken after a four-day meeting of members of the ruling Communist Party in Beijing, capital of the country.

“To promote a balanced growth of population, China will continue to uphold the basic national policy of population control and improve its strategy on population development,” Xinhua reported.

“China will fully implement the policy of ‘one couple, two children’ in a proactive response to the issue of an aging population.”

Last November, the most populous country in the world announced its intention to loosen the restrictive policy, which was introduced in the 1970s to check growing population.

The policy change was rolled out in 29 of China’s 33 provinces and regions and by the end of May, a total of 271,000 applications had been received from couples seeking  permission to have two children.

Government planners had predicted that roughly half of China’s 11 million eligible couples would choose to have a second child within five years, and investors predicted a boom in sales of diapers, baby formula, and educational toys in China.

In late 2013, the country announced that couples could have two children if one of the parents was an only child.

China currently has a population of 1.3 billion.