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Russia posts on another record high in population growth

Previously, the natural growth of the Russian population was registered in 1991, just before the USSR collapse

MOSCOW, June 11 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Minister of Labour and Social Protection Maxim Topilin on Wednesday reported on another hike in the development of the country’s demographic situation, which is being under acute control of Russia’s authorities already eight years. In April 2014, the birth rate went up by four percent, versus the same period of 2013, which confirms the strengthening trend in the indicator growth. At the beginning of the year, it amounted to 1.6%.

Previously, the natural growth of the Russian population was registered in 1991, just before the USSR collapse. Then it was followed by a sharp dropping of the index. In 2000, the population decline achieved the catastrophic level of one million people a year. And only in 2013, the birth rate in the country exceeded the mortality rate for the first time in a long period.

In April 2014, the natural growth of the population was registered in 52 out of 83 regions of Russia (exclusive Crimea). The population growth exceeded threshold of six percent in some regions, including the Chukchi Autonomous Area, Siberia’s Altai Republic, the Far Eastern Sakhalin Region and Kamchatka Territory, and the West Siberian Tyumen Region. In January-March the population increase was registered in 39 regions, including the North Caucasus, Urals, Siberian and Far Easter federal district as a whole.

Moreover, the country’s mortality year-on-year rate dropped by three percent in January-March 2014.

In 2006, Russia launched the National demographic development program, which imposed a series of steps to support childbirth. From 2007, the Maternity Capital program became effective in Russia. This program envisions 13,000 U.S. dollars benefit from the state to a mother for birth of second and next children in a family. As of now, almost 4.6 million families have already received such allowances.

Proceeding from the recent population census of 2010, Russia’s population was at 143.1 million people.