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Although there is no authoritative conclusion on whether 2007 is the year of the "golden pig", this has not prevented young parents wanting to have a baby this year.

The Beijing Maternity Hospital saw 243 births from Feb. 18 to Feb. 24, the first seven days of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, said a source with the hospital.

The obstetric section received 705 outpatients on Feb. 28 alone, according to the source.

Hospital sources predicted there would be at least 1,000 babies born in the hospital in March, and there would be a 20-percent rise year-on-year in births this year.

Many people want to have a baby in 2007 because this year is said to be an auspicious "Golden Year of the Pig". They believe children born this year will be lucky all their lives.

The International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital in Shanghai saw a record 890 births in January.

The obstetric section had added more beds to meet the demand, said Cheng Wei Wei, vice president of the hospital.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of births remained stable from 2001 to 2006, with about 16 million babies a year. It is forecast there will be 22 million babies born this year.

Xu Peixin, chief executive officer of the Beijing Red Baby Information Technology Co., Ltd., said his company registered sales of 59.5 million yuan (US$7.4 million) in the first two months, with items for infants accounting for 60 percent, a year-on-year rise of 30 percent.

Insiders said the baby boom would affect the national economy, and it would particularly boost consumption.

More babies means increased demand for infant clothes, toys, and other items.

Baby boom boosts dairy produce

China has experienced three baby booms in the past -- in the 1950s, the 1960s and the early 1980s. In the early 1960s, about 27 million babies were born each year.

Though the number of births this year is lower than previous baby booms, today's consumption level is much higher as incomes have risen markedly.

A research report by the Guojin Securities Research Institute shows the new boom will boost production of non-durables, such as milk powder, health products, clothes, toys and other daily necessities.

China's dairy produce totaled 120,000 tons in 2006, and dairy sales reached eight billion yuan (US$1 billion).

The country's dairy produce was expected to top 150,000 tons and sales to hit nine billion yuan this year, said industry analyst Chen Yu.

However, dairy producers are far more optimistic than Chen.

"We expect that our infant dairy produce will rise by more than 50 percent this year," said Yang Yaowen, head of the marketing section of the Sanlu Group, one of the country's leading dairy producers based in Shijiazhuang, capital of the northern Hebei Province.

Market research indicated that Sanlu will see a rise of at least 10 percent in the low-end market and possibly a 100-percent rise on the high-end market, said Yang.

Sanlu sold 40,000 tons of dairy products in 2006, the No. 1 in China, and the figure is expected to top 60,000 tons this year, Yang said.

Wandashan Dairy Co., Ltd., another domestic dairy producer, also forecast a 100-percent rise on the high-end market.

To the country's 1,500 dairy enterprises, the boom means opportunities. But dairy producers are aware that they face fierce competition for bigger market share and higher profits this year, insiders said.

Baby boom stimulates housing sales

The Guojin Securities report also shows the real estate, furniture and interior decoration sectors will also benefit from the baby boom.

The newly-wed couples totaled 171,000 in Beijing last year, and they were among the major buyers of houses, said real estate developers. The baby boom this year is also a good news to real estate developers, insiders said.

Beijing saw 100,000 newborns in 2004, the figure rose to 110,000 in 2005 and 120,000 in 2006. It is estimated that Beijing's newborns will top 130,000 this year.

"This is big opportunity," said a real estate developer, who declined to be identified.

"Generally, a couple will buy an apartment of their own before their baby is born, or at least they will buy an apartment one to two years after their baby is born," the developer said.

The baby boom is also a good news to industries such as interior decoration, the developer said. "Many parents want individualized furniture and wall decorations for their babies."

The benefits the baby boom brings to the real estate industry are not just the immediate rising demand for housing, insiders said. When the baby boomers grow up and have babies, that will be a bigger boost to the real estate industry.

Census statistics show that baby boomers of the 1962-1980 period account for 32 percent of China's total population of 1.3 billion. Now they are aged from 26 to 44, the primary home-buying group.

Many of the previous baby boomers had married since the beginning of the 1990s, and had or were going to have their babies, said Yi Xianrong, a research fellow with the Finance Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The fast development of China's real estate industry since 1998 had much to do with this group, Yi said.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's urban population was 502 million in 2002, or 39.1 percent of the country's total. By the end of 2005, the urban population expanded to 562 million, or 43 percent of the country's total.

Beijing's population grew by 415,000 in the past three years, which means 8.32 million square meters of new floor space are needed each year, calculated on the per capita floor space of 20.06 square meters in the city in 2006.

Economists warned that increasing demand might drive up housing prices. The average price of new homes in 70 large and medium-sized Chinese cities gained 6.1 percent year-on-year in January.

Figures from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and National Bureau of Statistics show the prices of new homes in Beijing rising by 9.9 percent a year, ranking the second highest after Shenzhen's 10.2 percent among the 70 cities.

Worries about baby boom

However, traditional family planning based on China's ancient "zodiac" of animal years is waning in the cities.

A survey on more than 5,500 people in Shanghai, China's biggest city, showed more than 70 percent of the respondents would ignore the year of the pig.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they did not believe that babies born in the Year of Pig are lucky.

Seventy-one percent of respondents worried local hospitals could not handle the baby boom and most of the respondents said they worried baby boomers might face fierce competition in finding jobs when they grow up.

Parents who give birth to a baby in the Year of Pig simply wished for their children to be happy and lucky, said Ouyang Xiaoming, a teacher at the Changshu College of Science and Engineering.

But, Ouyang warned, a sudden baby boom would affect the population structure and might cause shortages and imbalances of social resources.

Baby boomers had to compete for a bed in hospital when they are born, for a desk when they begin schooling, for a job after growing up and they might have to scramble for a bed in an seniors' home when they retire.

Each of them will have fewer opportunities.

Chen Bo, a doctor of psychology, warned young people to think carefully when they decide to have a baby and not to blindly follow suit.

Chen also suggested the authorities should monitor changes in the population and prepare early to minimize the adverse effects of booms.

(Xinhua News Agency March 16, 2007)