SHANGHAI, April 20 -- China will ease household registration limitations and try to realize 100 million urban household registers by 2020, Xu Shaoshi, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission, has said.

While addressing a forum on China's urbanization held in Shanghai Saturday, Xu said that the reform on the country's household registration system will eye more on former farmers in urban areas with better basic services.

He said that the urban residents without household registers will be provided with improved social welfare and public services.

China targets a sustainable urban and rural development in its urbanization drive, while pledging to ensure the area of arable land is no less than 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares), a "warning line" for grain security, Xu added.