Cairo, Jan 6 : Egyptian Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar announced that the country's population growth rate in 2023 decreased by 8 per cent compared to that of 2022. In a statement, the Minister said the number of births during 2023 reached 2.04 million, with a decrease of 149,000 births from the previous year, reports Xinhua news agency. He added that the number of daily births in 2023 reached 5,599, or about 233 births per hour, noting that the population of Egypt inside the country reached 105.86 million on Monday. He also noted that the birthrate of Egypt has declined over the last five years from 3.5 to 2.85 per woman, which reflects the government's concrete efforts to confront population increase. In the past few years, Egypt has been working on solutions to curb overpopulation. In March last year, the government said it would pay married women aged between 21 and 45 with no more than two children an annual incentive of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($32.46). They will receive the total amount when they turn 45. In February 2022, President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi launched a national family development project to tackle the health, education, social, cultural, and economic issues associated with overpopulation. /IANS