China to optimize elderly quality of life

China will continue to optimize the services for the elderly to let them get a better quality of life in their twilight years, which is also a step towards handling with the issues that come with age and improving the average people's benefits.

The Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China's cabinet, recently released a set of guidelines, aiming to build up a solid services system for the elderly by 2029. It said that the services will be better matched with the needs of elderly people by 2035 and all the elderly get access to basic pension services at the time. The nation will form a well-established elderly care service system by 2035.

Under the guidelines, a more reasonable and comprehensive elderly care service network will be established with joint efforts from families, residential communities and professional elderly service companies.

The government will pay more attention to the nursing and care work of elderly people living in countryside or rural areas, especially those at older elderly, those who lost their self-care ability or with disabilities.

Supervision over elderly care service companies or nursing houses will be further tightened, to make sure these companies and nursing house operators have proper fee-charging and caring behaviors.

According to the guidelines, the government will encourage foreign companies to invest in the domestic pension industries by giving them some preferential treatment. The government also encourages companies to develop and promote products for the elderly and enrich their services to the elderly, aiming for a prosperous silver economy.

The government will cultivate more talent for the elderly care industry by optimizing the nursing workers' evaluation system and setting up pioneer training programs for nursing workers at designated vocational schools, according to the guidelines.

Also, the nation will channel resources and investment into technological programs on elderly care services such as humanoid robots and artificial intelligence. The State-level elderly care service information platform will be optimized to better balance the market's supplies and the elderly's needs.