Singaporeans have made more than 11,000 calls to a hotline to get more details about financial and other incentives contained in a S$300 million (US$176 million) package announced on August 25.

Public feedback "has been very positive on the whole, with many Singaporeans expressing strong support for the measures," the official Steering Group on Population said.

A parenthood website registered almost 80,000 hits in the nine days since the new package was launched.

Lifting Singapore's fertility rate has become an urgent national priority after it fell to an all-time low of 1.26 children per woman in 2003.

The new package is on top of existing incentives worth 500 million dollars a year.

Only 36,000 babies were born last year, well below the 50,000 needed to replenish the population of 3.4 million naturally and to provide enough manpower for long-term economic, defense and other needs.

Failure to produce enough babies will also mean a higher proportion of elderly citizens in the population in the long term, resulting in heavy social welfare costs for the state.

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