Russia’s population will grow by 1.8 percent by 2020, Health Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Saturday.

“If we look at the forecast until 2020, we will see that our population is expected to grow 1.8 percent against the January 1, 2011 figure,” Golikova said at a government meeting.

According to official estimates, Russia’s population was 142,865,433 on January 1, 2011, and totaled 143,030,106 on January 1, 2012, which means it will exceed 145,400,000 people by 2020 in line with the forecast.