Justin Joseph
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Russian population decline may be over: Medvedev
Russia may have bucked a post-Soviet population decline, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday after announcing a 1.5 per cent rise in the number of births during the first quarter.
Russia's population rose by 10,000 to 141.9 million in 2009, stoking optimistic statements from senior health officials that Russia's 6.6 million decline since 1995 may be coming to an end.
"For the first time in recent decades . . . the birth rate in our country has started to rise," Medvedev said, adding that 428,000 births had been registered in the first quarter, 1.5 percent more than in the same period last year.
Population forecasts are key to the economic models which see Russia growing much slower during the next 20 years than the other BRIC countries, Brazil India and China.
A sharp change in population trends could improve growth predictions for Russia, though many experts say it is too early to call the end of the declines which started in the chaos that accompanied the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
"I hope that we have managed to break those extremely unfavourable demographic trends which have existed in our country over the past two decades," Medvedev told a Kremlin meeting to reward the parents of extremely large families.
"We were simply declining and I hope we can reverse this trend," said Medvedev, who before he was elected president administered a Kremlin drive to cut the population decline.
Russian population decline may be over: Medvedev
Russia may have bucked a post-Soviet population decline, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday after announcing a 1.5 per cent rise in the number of births during the first quarter.
Russia's population rose by 10,000 to 141.9 million in 2009, stoking optimistic statements from senior health officials that Russia's 6.6 million decline since 1995 may be coming to an end.
"For the first time in recent decades . . . the birth rate in our country has started to rise," Medvedev said, adding that 428,000 births had been registered in the first quarter, 1.5 percent more than in the same period last year.
Population forecasts are key to the economic models which see Russia growing much slower during the next 20 years than the other BRIC countries, Brazil India and China.
A sharp change in population trends could improve growth predictions for Russia, though many experts say it is too early to call the end of the declines which started in the chaos that accompanied the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
"I hope that we have managed to break those extremely unfavourable demographic trends which have existed in our country over the past two decades," Medvedev told a Kremlin meeting to reward the parents of extremely large families.
"We were simply declining and I hope we can reverse this trend," said Medvedev, who before he was elected president administered a Kremlin drive to cut the population decline.
Russian population decline may be over: Medvedev
