The number of marriages between South Korean nationals and foreign nationals inched up last year, ending six consecutive years of decline, government data showed.

There were 21,917 international marriages last year, up 1 percent, or 208, from a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea. Those marriages accounted for 8.3 percent of the country’s 264,455 marriages in the same year, up from 7.7 percent tallied in the previous year.

The number of cross-cultural marriages had been on a steady decline since peaking at 35,098 in 2011. In 2010 the Korean government announced measures to tighten criteria for international marriages.