BEIJING - China's aging population is increasing quickly while the birth rate remains low, Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.

Ma was citing the results of the sixth national population census, which showed 16.6 percent of the country's population was aged 14 or younger. The figure was 6.29 percentage points lower than that in the 2000 census.

The latest census also found the proportion of Chinese people aged 60 or older took up 13.26 percent of the total, 2.93 percentage points higher than that in the 2000 census, Ma said.

China held its sixth national population census last year, which showed the country's total population hit 1.3397 billion in 2010.