In a major shock to all attempts to boost the country's declining number of new births, China's fertility rate is now estimated to have dropped to a record low of 1.09 in 2022, one of the prominent dailies reported.

The National Business Daily quoted the figure from China's Population and Development Research Center which puts the country's fertility rate as the lowest among countries with a population of more than 100 million. China now has the lowest fertility rate alongside its Southeast Asian neighbours — Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore.

Also, Hong Kong's Family Planning Association said in a separate release that the number of childless women in the special Chinese administrative region more than doubled from five years ago to 43.2 percent in 2022. Moreover, the average number of children per woman dropped from 1.3 in 2017 to a record low of 0.9 last year.

Since incumbent President Xi Jinping came to power, China is rapidly trying an array of measures to lift the birth rate. After following the one child policy for decades, Beijing is now concerned about China's first population drop in six decades and its rapid ageing population.

The most important reason a demographic downturn — One Child policy was implemented from 1980 to 2015. It replaced that policy with a two-child policy in 2016, and changed it again in 2021, allowing married couples to have up to three children.

China's fertility rate in 2021`stood at 1.16, far below the 2.1 OECD standard for a stable population.