China's population grows at slowest pace to 1.41 billion, shows data

Number of births fell to 12 mn in 2020: Census

China’s births fell to their lowest in almost six decades amid the pandemic last year, putting the country’s population on course to peak within the next five years and adding pressure on Beijing to step up reforms to maintain economic growth as the workforce shrinks.
 
There were 1.412 billion people in China last year, according to the results of a once-a-decade census, up 5.38 per cent from a decade before, but slightly below previous official projections. The annual average population growth of 0.53 per cent in the past decade was the slowest since the 1950s.
 
China’s population has