Several Chinese government officials have acknowledged the country's 30-year-old one-child policy needs to be revised. If not abolished, some remained wary any new amendments would pose more hazards than good for the world's second largest economy.

"China still faces a shortage in the average per capita amount of resources, insufficient environment capacity and imbalanced economic development ... and the large population will keep pressuring the economy, society, resources and the environment," Mao Chun'an, National Health and Family Planning Commission spokesman, said in a press conference.

"Therefore, the country must stick to the ... policy in the long run."

A Chinese woman crouches as she breastfeeds her child along a street in central Beijing in this October 30, 2008 file photo. REUTERS/David Gray/Files

Mao added any step to revise the existing policy must be able to "serve to maintain a low birth rate while satisfying individual families' desire to have more children."

The press conference was reportedly called in response to speculations that the Central Government is already willing to relax the family planning policy after the Third Plenum of the Communist Party of China's 18th Central Committee, which opened Saturday in Beijing.

Under the current policy, which has been existing for 30 years, couples in urban areas are allowed to have only one child. Preference is given to a male child.

Although there are families who have violated the law, they are required to pay steep fines. To avoid being penalized, either families abort the fetuses or terminate a woman's pregnancy, or worst resort to infanticide.

But the policy, while it has managed to help China manage its national resources for some time, has also hurt its economy, according to experts, saying it is one of the reasons for the country's large gender imbalance, primarily represented by single and poor men, and contracting work force. China has a lot of old people.

"A rapidly aging population without an adequate social security net and shrinking ranks of young workers present a demographic time-bomb for the nation," according to a MarketWatch analysis.

"China's one-child policy might [have contributed] to high growth in the past, but Chinese population is rapidly aging, [economic] growth is slowing and inflation is rising, due partially to this outdated policy," Bank of America analysts said.

Since enacted three decades ago, China was able to reduce its birth rate by about 400 million, according to the China Daily.