China Medical News

According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), the number of births in China was 17.86 million last year, which is an increase of 7.9% (or 1.31 million) compared to 2015, and the highest annual number since 2000. The portion of the births to couples who already had at least one child rose to at least 45% last year, and a director of the NHFPC said "Some regions, mostly large cities in eastern areas, began recording second children as comprising more than half of local newborns". Expert estimations suggest the number of new births each year will stand between 17 to 20 million in China by 2020.
A professor of population studies at Nankai University said "The long-term effect of the universal second-child policy is very helpful to China's sustainable development," and that "By 2050, the policy is expected to bring about an extra 30 million working-age people and reduce the nation's aging rate by 2%". (Source: China Daily)

Separate data by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) counted a slightly higher figure of 18.46 million births in 2016. The discrepancy was blamed on different statistical methods - the NBS numbers were based on a sampling survey, while the NHFPC's were based on hospital birth certificate data - but officials said both confirmed a significant upwards trend. (Source: BBC)