MOSCOW, June 9 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's economically active population will decline by 15% by 2015 against the 2000 level, the speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament said Friday.
Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov said: "The low birth rate and high death rate pose a serious threat to our nation. Over the past ten years the country has lost almost nine million people."
"The economically active population in Russia will fall by 10.6 million from the 2000 figure by 2015," he said. In 2000, the figure was 71,464,000.
President Vladimir Putin focused on the country's demographic plight in his May 10 state of the nation address, and proposed significant financial assistance to new mothers as well as schemes to legalize illegal migrants and tap migration flows.
