Seoul, Feb. 25 -- South Korea, which was plunging into declining population, grew to 0.8- rising after four years, Yonhap reported.

The pace of growth was highest since 2010, second consecutive year of growth.

A total of 254,500 babies were born last year, up 6.8 per cent, or 16,100, from 2024, according to the provisional data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics. The ministry will announce the final statistics in August, as per Yonhap.

The total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime, came to 0.8, up 0.05 from a year earlier, recovering the threshold for the first time in four years.

The ministry attributed the rebound in the number of newborns to an increase in marriages and...