Hong Kong  - Hong Kong hospitals on Thursday began turning away women from mainland China arriving to give birth to ensure the city could cope with a surge in local births expected in the next three months.

The territory has imposed a three-month ban on childbirth bookings by mainland mothers to ensure the city's over-stretched maternity services can deal with an expected
20-per-cent increase in deliveries by local women.

A similar ban was imposed last year as part of an on-going series of measures to reduce the number of mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong.

The number of so-called "maternity tourists" from China has risen steadily since the easing of cross-border restrictions in 2003.

Last year, almost 10,500 - or one quarter - of the 41,000 births in public hospitals were to non-local women.

Giving birth in Hong Kong not only guarantees them world-class health care but in many cases secures citizenship in the city of 7 million for children who would otherwise be entitled only to a Chinese passport.

Hong Kong citizenship entitles the children to free education, health care and other benefits throughout their life, the equivalent of a lottery win for children from poor families in southern China.

In 2007, Hong Kong's Hospital Authority imposed charges of up to 6,000 US dollars for each non-resident birth in bid to curb the rise.

A Hospital Authority spokesman said as a result births by mainland mothers had fallen by 12 per cent in 2008 compared with 2006.

However, the coming months are a peak period for births among local women which made reintroducing the ban necessary, said the spokesman.

Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 after 156 years as a British colony but maintains a tightly-controlled border and economic and political autonomy under a "one country, two systems" arrangement.(dpa)