BEIJING: China last year saw its highest number of births this century, officials said, a baby bump that came after the country relaxed its family planning policies in 2015 to allow more families a second child.

The country welcomed 17.86 million new children in 2016, an annual increase of 7.9 percent, with nearly half of the new births occurring in families which already had one child, Yang Wenzhuang, an official from the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), said Sunday.

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