Taiwan's birth rate has continued its downward trend, with the number of newborns expected to drop to a new low this year, an official of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said Thursday. Only 137,967 babies were born in Taiwan in the first nine months of this year, representing a 3.4 percent decline from the year-earlier level, the official said. 'Given this trend, the total number of this year's newborns could fall below 192,000, which would be a new low in the country's history, ' the official added. The number of newborns slid below the benchmark 200,000 for the first time in 2008, when only 198,733 babies were born. According to MOI tallies, northern Taiwan's Hsinchu City boasted the highest crude birth rate of 9.4 births per 1,000 population for the January-September period, while the northern port city of Keelung recorded the lowest birth rate of 4.9. Compared with the same period of last year, the offshore Kinmen and Lienchiang counties saw the largest growth in birth rate, both increasing 0.5 per 1,000 population, while the southern city of Chiayi posted the largest decline of 0.5 per 1,000. In terms of maternal nationality, 91.2 percent of the newborns were delivered by Taiwanese nationals, 4.7 percent were born to women from China, Hong Kong and Macau and 4.1 percent were born to people from other countries. Over the past six years, the MOI official said, the annual number of births to women from the three Chinese areas has remained almost the same, but the number of newborns delivered by spouses from elsewhere has been declining steadily. In terms of marital status, 132,450 newborns, or 96 percent of the total, were born to married couples, while 5,489 or 3.98 percent were born out of wedlock, and 28, or 0.02 percent, were deserted babies or orphans. Taitung County in eastern Taiwan had the highest number of illegitimate babies, followed by neighboring Hualien County and then Keelung City. The number of babies born out of wedlock marked a 0.22 percent decrease from the 2008 level, but an increase of 1.06 percent from 1997, according to MOI tallies. 