China plans to build sound aged care industry clusters with economic and social benefits in some regions whose economic and social development has adapted to their aging population by 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission announced in a notice published on its website on Monday.

The plan is expected to help explore universally applicable and pragmatic measures in coping with the challenges posed by China's aging population, according to the notice.

China's aging population

People aged 60 or above totaled nearly 254 million by the end of 2019, accounting for 18 percent of the Chinese population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The number is projected to surpass 300 million in 2025 and reach 500 million in 2050.

"To meet the demands of an increasingly aging population, China needs to innovate the elderly care mechanism and system to reduce the elderly care costs and optimize the environment for elderly people to receive care," Zhu Lijia, professor of public administration at the National Academy of Governance, was quoted by National Business Daily as saying.

To develop the elderly care industry by utilizing existing resources, the notice encouraged promoting elderly care facilities while carrying out renovation of old communities in urban areas and using vacant public rental houses to develop the aged care industry.

Besides building elderly care industry parks, where enterprises could provide relevant recovery equipment, medicines, entertainment and nursing care, the notice also pointed out that quality elderly care institutions could get more support in promoting their brands, thus inviting more franchized institutions. 

Internet-plus elderly care

In the internet era, the notice highlighted the importance of internet-plus elderly care in building aged care industry clusters.

According to the notice, large-scale internet enterprises could get support in participating in the elderly care services and elderly health services, and quality elderly care institutions are encouraged to use internet platforms to upgrade their services.

In recent years, there have been many internet-based elderly care models including smart elderly care and internet-plus home-based elderly care.

The new type of elderly care models are based on internet platforms, and technologies could guarantee the safety of the elderly people who choose home-based elderly care and meet their demands timely, Zhu told National Business Daily.

In east China's Jiangsu Province, cities including Suzhou and Xuzhou have set up smart elderly care services platforms, which benefit nearly 2.45 million old people.