By staff reporter LU RUCAI

A sample survey of the 2004 population increase released by the State Statistical Bureau shows that by the end of 2004 the total population of the Chinese mainland was 1.29988 billion, and that it was increasing by 208,000 people per day. According to this data, on January 6, 2005, China’s population (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) reached 1.3 billion.