China's second-child policy pushed the fertility rate up to more than 1.7 last year, an increase from between 1.5 and 1.6 between 2000 and 2015, Wang Pei'an, deputy minister in charge of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, told a news conference on Saturday.[Special Coverage]
More than 18.4 million babies were born in China last year, 2 million more than the annual number of new births for the previous five years, and the highest number since 2000, Wang said.
The fertility rate is the average number of children a woman gives birth to in her lifetime.
"The second-child policy has produced satisfactory results," Wang said. "They totally met our expectations."
More than 90 million couples became eligible to have a second child under the new policy, but only 28 percent of them are expected to have a second baby due to old age or unwillingness to have a bigger family, he said.
China is not lacking in population and even by the end of the century China's population will remain at more than 1.1 billion, Wang said.
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Chinese patients are expected to save between 60 and 70 billion yuan ($8.7 billion - $10.1 billion) in drug expenditure this year, after the government banned all public hospitals from drug price mark-ups.
Wang Hesheng, deputy minister in charge of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, told a news conference on Saturday that public hospitals selling drugs at inflated prices caused problems such as "big prescriptions" and excessive use of antibiotics.
Fertility rate edges closer to two children
The second-child policy pushed China's total fertility rate up to more than 1.7 last year, an increase from between 1.5 and 1.6 between 2000 and 2015.
Wang Pei'an, deputy minister in charge of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, told a news conference on Saturday that the increase was due to the new policy adopted at the beginning of last year allowing all couples to have a second child.
China not facing labor shortage, says family planning commission
The deputy minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission says China is not facing a labor shortage.
Wang Pei'an told a news conference on Saturday that the population aged between 15 and 64 years old was 1 billion by the end of 2015, accounting for 73 percent of China's total population.
