Last year's births corresponded to 5.63 per 1,000 inhabitants, the lowest birth rate since 1949, when the communist People's Republic was proclaimed and official statistics began to be kept.
Birth rates have declined steadily over the past decade, despite the country's restrictive "one-child policy" ending in 2015. The government in Beijing has tried in various ways to stimulate the desire to start a family, including a so-called "condom tax" on contraceptives and new child benefits.
11.31 million deaths were registered last year in the country, whose population is just over 1.4 billion.
