The annual number of births in China has fallen for the first time since Beijing relaxed its one-child policy, suggesting that the reform has failed to reverse declining fertility rates that economists warn are a long-term threat to the country’s development.
There were 17.23m births in China in 2017, down from 17.86m the previous year, the country’s national statistics bureau said on Thursday.
The ruling Communist party’s policy allowing all couples to have two children came into force in 2016, leading to a 1.3m increase in births that year compared with 2015.
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