BEIJING: China would ease family planning restrictions to allow all couples to have two children after decades of a strict one-child policy, the ruling Communist Party said on Thursday.

The move is a major liberalisation of the country`s family planning restrictions, already eased in late 2013 when Beijing said it would allow more families to have two children if the parents met certain conditions.

China, which has the world`s largest population at 1.4 billion, introduced the one-child policy in 1979 as a temporary measure to curb a then-surging population and limit the demands for water and other resources.

Chinese families with a strong preference for boys have sometimes resorted to aborting female foetuses, a practice that has upset the ratio of male to female babies. China has rates of up to 115 boys per 100 girls at birth --compared with what are considered normal rates of about 107 boys to 100 girls.The imbalance makes it difficult for some men to find wives, and is believed to fuel the trafficking of women as brides.

Couples who broke the rules have been forced to pay a fee in proportion to their income. In some cases, rural families saw their livelihood in the form of their pigs and chickens taken away.

The announcement was made at the end of a key party meeting focused on financial reforms and maintaining growth between 2016 and 2020 amid concerns over the country`s slowing economy.

China would `fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an ageing population`, the party said in a statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency.

There were no immediate details on the new policy or a timeframe for implementation.

China could be the first country inthe world to get old before it gets rich.

By around the middle of this century, one in every three Chinese isforecast to be over 60, with a dwindling proportion of working adults to support them.

Wang Feng, a leading expert on demographic and social change in China, called the move a `historic event` but said the challenges of China`s ageing society would remain.

`It`s an event that we have been waiting for for a generation, but it is one we have had to wait much too long for, Wang said.

`It won`t have any impact on the issue of the ageing society, but it will change the character of many young families.

Too little, too late? Under the 2013 reform, couples in which one parent was an only child were allowed to have a second child.

Critics said the relaxation of rules was too little, too late to redress sub-stantial negative effects of the onechild policy on the economy and society.

Many couples who were allowed to have another child under the 2013 rules decided not to, especially in the cities, citing the cost of bringing up children in an increasingly expensive country.

William Nee, a researcher at human rights group Amnesty International, welcomed the move, but urged China to go further.

`China should immediately and completely end its control over people`s decisions to have children. This would not only be good for improving human rights, but would also make sense given the stark demographic challenges that lie ahead,` he said.

The party plenum also announced plans to attack other structural economic challenges, covering areas such as market pricing, innovation, consumption and more private ownership of assets.-Agencies