Kazakhstan, Astana, 15 April / Trend, D. Mukhtarov /
Since the beginning of 2013, the population of Kazakhstan has grown by 42,000 people, Chairman of the Statistics Agency Alikhan Smailov said at a briefing at the Central Communications Office under the President of Kazakhstan.
"The population of the country amounted to about 16.954 million people on March 1, 2013. In January and February of 2013 the population of the whole country increased by 42,000 persons, or 0.2 percent. Compared to March 1, 2012, the population increased by 236,000 people, or 1.4 per cent," Alikhan Smailov said.
On March 1, 2013, the urban population amounted to over 9.291 million people, or 54.8 percent of the total population, the rural population - over 7.662 million people.
"The natural increase of the population in January-February 2013 amounted to 41.4 thousand people compared to 40.3 thousand in the first two months of 2012. During January-February 2013, the registry offices registered 66.4 thousand births, which is 0.8 percent more than in the corresponding period of 2012," Smailov said.
According to him, the number of deaths in the country during the reporting period amounted to 25,000 people, which is 2.3 percent less than the same period last year.
"In January and February, the country's migration balance was positive. The number of immigrants exceeded the number of emigrants by 559 people, or 21.1 per cent. In January and February of this year, the number of immigrants in Kazakhstan decreased by 23.9 per cent to 2650 compared with the same period in 2012. The major migration exchanges were with CIS countries: 2,575 immigrants and 2,442 emigrants," the chairman of the agency said.
The number of internal migrants totaled 46.9 thousand people, decreasing by 21.1 percent. Positive inter-regional migration balance is observed in six regions of the country: in the cities of Astana (2,378 people) and Almaty (834), as well as in Almaty (989 people), Mangistau (391 people), Atyrau (85 people) and Pavlodar (27 people) provinces.