China will enact policies to boost its birth rate, President Xi Jinping said on Sunday, as policymakers worry that an imminent decline in China's population could hurt the world's second-biggest economy.
"We will establish a policy system to boost birth rates and pursue a proactive national strategy in response to population ageing," Xi told some 2,300 delegates in a speech opening the once-in-five-year Communist Party Congress in Beijing, reports Reuters.
Although China has 1.4 billion people, the most in the world, its births are set to fall to record lows this year, demographers say, dropping below 10 million from last year's 10.6 million babies - already down 11.5 per cent from 2020.
The authorities imposed a one-child policy from 1980 to 2015, later switching to a three-child policy, acknowledging the nation is on the brink of a demographic downturn.
