The marriage certificate fee may rocket to 360 yuan (US$43.2) from the present 9 yuan in Guangdong Province in the near future, Chinese-language newspapers reported Friday.

Duangdong civil affairs department said in Guangzhou on Thursday that it was considering raising the charge for marriage certificates in an attempt to stay even.

It said the present charge was too low compared with high salaries and most civil affairs bureaus in the province were incurring huge losses.

"The price for everything is rising except the marriage certificate fee," a Mr. Chen, a division head of the department. "Our income is falling badly short of expenditure. We cannot afford employees' salaries with the poor income."

Chen said detailed cost accounting showed it actually cost 361.8 yuan for civil affairs authorities to register a couple.

A couple has had to pay 9 yuan for a marriage certificate issued by the civil affairs authorities since 1993.

A survey by the civil affairs department found that 98 percent of those surveyed regarded the marriage certificate fee as too low and agreed to a price rise.

However, they differed on the rate of increase. More than 20 percent said it was acceptable to charge 300 yuan for a marriage certificate, 65 percent said between 100 and 200 yuan while 15 percent favored a fee of less than 100 yuan.

Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, raised its marriage certificate fee to 128 yuan at the beginning of this year.

A marriage certificate costs at least HK$4,000 (US$513) in Hong Kong.

(Shenzhen Daily  September 27, 2004)