China has begun a new campaign to promote later marriages and childbirth in anticipation of a new baby boom which is expected to take place at the end of the next decade.

A Chinese official in the State Family Planning Commission, Yang Kuifi, said China will witness over twenty million births every year in the five years that follow the year 2009, even if the fertility rate of women is strictly controlled to two children.

A sample survey last year recorded a population of one point two billion; the figure is expected to reach one point six billion by the middle of the next century.