Latest count: China has 1.341 billion people

BEIJING -- Preliminary statistics showed China had ?1.341 billion people at the end of 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

The figure is compared with 1.335 billion at the end of 2009 and 1.328 billion at the end of 2008.

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China is scheduled to release the final count in April, which is based on the country's sixth national population census, the NBS said in a ?statistics bulletin on China's national economy and social development for the year of 2010.

The population of China's farmer-turned workers increased 5.4 percent year on year to 242.23 million at the end of last year, while the number of rural workers working outside their hometowns rose 5.5 percent from 2009 to top 153.35 million, the NBS said.

Despite the increase in the number of rural workers, labor shortages have recently been felt in many of China's manufacturing hubs.

According to the NBS report, although China overtook Japan last year to be the world's second largest economy, it still had 26.88 million people ?living below the poverty line for the country's rural areas, which was set at 1,274 yuan (about US$193) last year.

That figure of rural people living below poverty line was 9.09 million less compared with that in 2009.