The resident population of Macao was estimated at 498,000 at the end of the first quarter, up 27,000 over the same period of 2005, according to official statistics issued Wednesday.

The figures released by the government-run Statistics and Census Service showed that, in the first quarter, the special administrative region logged 936 cases of live births, a decrease of 13.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005.

Some 52.2 percent of the live births in the quarter were male, the figures displayed.

The number of mortality cases stood at 422 in the first quarter, the figures indicated, major causes of which were diseases of the circulatory system and malignant neoplasm.

(Xinhua News Agency May 25, 2006)