MURMANSK, May 17. /TASS/. The Murmansk Region's population decline decreased sevenfold by 2023. For the first time in 33 years, the Arctic region recorded not a decrease, but an increase in population, Governor Andrey Chibis said presenting the government's annual report to the regional legislators.

"Our main achievement, the result of a huge amount of work in various directions, is that for the first time in recent 33 years, more people have come to live here than those who have preferred to leave the region," he said. "Over five years, the population decline rate has decreased sevenfold, and the natural decline, including mortality, is twice less."

The region's authorities have set a goal to overcome the natural population decline by 2030, but have managed to achieve it by 2023, he added. The governor pointed to an increase in first-born children and to a 40% increase in the number of large families in the Arctic.