No timetable for two-child policy to be implemented in China

BEIJING, March 6 (UPI) -- China's health department Thursday said it does not yet have a timetable as to when all couples will be allowed to have two children.

Last year, Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, adopted a policy that would allow couples in which at least one parent came from a single-child home to have a second child, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

However, the legislature left it up to provinces to determine how and when the rule change would be applied.

Li Bin, minister in charge of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said at a press conference Thursday that so far, eight provinces have implemented the two-child policy. There is no timeline for when all of China's provinces must put the policy into practice, Li said.