Vatican City - In 2007 Roman Catholics numbered 1.147 billion people, or some 17.3 per cent of the global population, the Vatican said Saturday in its latest report on church statistics.

The total, which relates to the number of people baptized as Catholics, marks a 1.4 per cent increase over the previous year and is "in tune" with global population growth of 1.1 per cent during the same period, the Vatican noted.

The annual report, published in the form of a thick hard-cover book, was presented to Pope Benedict XVI in a ceremony at the Vatican on the Saturday morning.

Among the figures contained in the report was "a continuing trend of moderate growth in the number of priests in the world which began in 2000 after over two decades of disappointing results," the Vatican said.

Led by Africa and Asia with increases of 27.6 and 21.2 per cent respectively, the number of priests in the world has grown from 405,178 in 2000 to 408,024 in 2007.

During the same period the number of priests in North and South America has remained stationary while Europe and Oceania experienced a decline of 6.8 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively, the Vatican said. (dpa)