BEIJING — China will pilot an inter-provincial marriage registration policy to save its growing migrant population from returning to their hometown for marriage registration.

The pilot program will be first introduced in Liaoning, Shandong, Guangdong, Chongqing and Sichuan, among other provincial-level regions, running from June 1, 2021 to May 31, 2023, the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) announced on May 19.

Under China's current regulations, marriages must be registered at a marriage registry located in the place of household registration of the bride or groom.

The new policy will enable people living outside their place of household registration to register their marriage in the pilot areas where they have resided for a continuous period of at least half a year, the ministry said.

An average of 10 million new marriages are registered annually in China, while an annual average of nearly 4 million divorces are handled by marriage registries across the country, showed MCA statistics.

China's migrant population has been on the rise. According to the country's latest national census, around 493 million people lived outside their place of household registration in 2020, with those aged between 15 and 35 accounting for more than 70 percent.

Calling the cross-regional marriage registration program a well-timed move, Ma Chunhua, an expert with the Institute of Sociology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the policy is aimed at solving people's practical difficulties and meeting their needs.

"Such changes to marriage registration procedures are an inevitable trend of social development," Ma said.

The pilot policy has become feasible thanks to the digitalization of the marriage registration system. A national marriage information database has been established, which can be shared among civil affairs departments across the country.

The MCA has also teamed up with banks and other departments to adopt an individual credit risk notification system in a bid to punish those engaged in fraudulent practices in marriage registration, such as deliberately concealing or fabricating personal information.