CHINA: Five Year Plan for Elderly Announced

BEIJING (United Press International), September 21, 2006: China announced plans Thursday to increase medical care and social services for the country's growing elderly population. The five-year plan is especially aimed at those living in rural areas -- about 66 percent of the elderly -- Xinhua, the official government news agency announced. Plans include increasing the number of beds in homes for the elderly by 800,000 in the cities and 2.2 million in the countryside. The number of colleges and schools for older Chinese is to be increased by 10,000. China has 143 million elderly residents. That is expected to increase to 174 million by 2010, or more than 12 percent of the population. The country plans to integrate more of the elderly poor into rural cooperative health systems and into pension systems.