The birth rate in China has dropped to its lowest level since the People’s Republic was founded in 1949. Last year, the rate was 10.48 births per 1,000 people, as China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced today.
This means that 580,000 fewer children were born in the previous year than in the previous year. The country’s birth rate has been falling for years, the BBC writes.
Reached 1.4 billion mark
In return, the rate of deaths has also decreased – which means that China now has 1.4 billion inhabitants.
For comparison: According to the BBC, the birth rate in China is lower than in the USA – according to the latest figures from 2017, twelve children per 1,000 people were born there.
China’s economy at a weak 6.1 percent
The Chinese economy, meanwhile, has grown more slowly than it has in three decades. As reported by the National Statistics Office of the People’s Republic, gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 6.1 percent. That was the weakest growth since 1990. In 2018, the Chinese economy grew by 6.6 percent.
Experts attribute the weakening of the Chinese economy to the weakening of domestic demand and the trade conflict with the United States that has been going on for almost two years. Recently, however, this conflict had eased somewhat: On Wednesday, Washington and Beijing signed a first partial agreement to regulate their trade relations in the future.
In the agreement, Beijing agrees to purchase additional $ 200 billion in US goods over two years. In return, the United States will waive new punitive tariffs and, in some cases, will lower existing tariffs.
