Five districts in Beijing said they would put a cap on their population in the next five years, a move an expert said would improve the capital's environment and traffic.
The population of Xicheng, Dongcheng and Shunyi districts will be limited to 1.11 million, 762,000 and 1.3 million respectively, within five years, The Beijing News reported Wednesday.
Daxing and Shijingshan districts have set their population ceiling at 1.7 million and 616,000 respectively, by the end of 2017, the report added.
The population control policy in the five districts is expected to lead to a relocation to suburban areas or outside the capital together with the relocation of companies and government agencies, as well as the removal of illegal buildings.
Under the policy, shabby buildings will be demolished and some firms and administrative bodies will be relocated, which would immediately improve the image of the city, and the population cap would improve the environment and decongest traffic, Zhu Shouxian, a research fellow at the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
Beijing has experienced a slower population growth in recent years, thanks to efforts to adjust city functions and relocate industries. In the last five years, the annual population growth rate was 2 percent, compared with 5 percent in previous years, the Xinhua News Agency reported in January.
In 2015, Beijing had 21.7 million permanent residents and hopes to cap its population at 23 million by 2020.
