CANBERRA, March 19 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government will slash the nation's permanent migrant intake by 30,000 in the lead-up to May's general election.

Fairfax Media and News Corp Australia reported on Tuesday that the government is preparing to reduce the nation's annual permanent migration intake from 190,000 to 160,000 and place an official cap on the figure at that level.

The announcement will be reportedly made as part of the Federal Budget, which will be released by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on April 2, and comes months after Morrison first signalled the move in November 2018.

The budget is widely considered the government's major opportunity to make up ground on the opposition Australian Labor Party, which currently holds a lead according to Newspoll, one of the nation's opinion polls.

Despite the official ceiling currently being 190,000, the government allowed 162,417 permanent migrants into the country in financial year 2017-18.

The government will also announce measures to encourage new migrants to Australia to work in regional areas to ease the burden of rapid population growth on Sydney and Melbourne.

As many as 87 percent of the 112,000 skilled migrants who arrived in Australia in 2017-18 settled in either Sydney or Melbourne.