Cuba Reports Slight Increase in Population

CUBA, May 30, 2008. A slight increase in the number of births in Cuba was reported Friday by local authorities, but not enough to change the country's overall trend of an aging population.

In statements to Granma newspaper, the director of the Population Research Center of the National Statistics Office, Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, said there were 1,149 more births in 2007 than in the previous year.

According to the center's estimates, by 2025, there will be 74,000 people less than the current population of 11,236,790.

"We have reached the peak and it is forecasted that we will not reach 12 million," he noted.

Fraga said that at the same time Cuban population is aging. He pointed out that by the end of 2007 people over the age of 60 represented 16.6 percent of the population and forecasted that by the year 2025, they will represent 26.1 percent.

The specialist said a drop in the fecundity rate was registered after
1978 and at present the average is of less than one child per woman of reproductive age. He said that is the main factor causing the decrease in population.

He said that this reduction is a result of the social and professional advances achieved by Cuban women, and free access and promotion of contraceptive methods.(Cubaminrex- ACN)