GUANGZHOU -?South China's Guangdong province on Thursday relaxed its birth control policy by allowing couples to have a second baby if either parent is an only child.

An amendment to the Guangdong Provincial Population and Family Planning Regulations was passed at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress.

Chen Yiping, deputy director of Guangdong's commission of health and family planning, said fewer than 150,000 families were eligible to have a second child as a result of the policy change, and about 70 percent were willing to have another baby.

Chen said the policy change will make little difference to the population of the province.

China's family planning policy, put in place in the late 1970s, is designed to curb population growth.

Besides Guangdong, the municipalities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing as well as the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Anhui and Sichuan have also changed their policies.