China says population has reached 1.373 billion
China`s population is set to peak at about 1.45 billion by 2050 when one in every three is expected to be more than 60, with a shrinking proportion of working adults to support them.
Beijing announced last year that it would relax a controversial one-child policy launched in the late 1970s and allow all couples to have two children in an effort to redress the imbalance.
The statistics bureau said on Wednesday that as many as 16.15 percent of the population were now over 60.