NEARLY half of local people surveyed are backing the Shanghai government’s plan to limit the city’s population to under 25 million by 2020.

According to the survey released by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Sociology, 48.5 percent of the respondents said setting the population bottom line will benefit the city’s development, and 43.9 percent said it will help to enhance the population quality.

Other respondents, however, expressed concerns that the plan could bring negative effects, with 21.4 percent of the respondents saying limiting the population numbers might affect people’s daily lives and 18.1 percent worried the policy will cause labor shortages.