A Chinese official said in Beijing Tuesday that China's aging population will not lead to a social crisis.

"China's aging population comes as the country's economy undergoes rapid growth and prolongs people's life expectancy," said Zhang Weiqing, director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

Zhang said China will not experience a social collapse or crisis which some people have predicted as the number of elderly in China grows.

By the end of 2005, China had nearly 144 million people over the age of 60, accounting for 11 percent of its population. The number of elderly people is increasing at a rate of three percent a year.

The ratio between China's working population and its retirees has dropped from 10:1 in 1990 into 3:1 in 2003. The figure is expected to reach 2.5:1 in 2020.

The soaring number of senior citizens has brought great challenges to China's social security network, medical care system and social service sector, but Zhang said the "problem is not so difficult to handle."

The Chinese government, said Zhang, has taken a series of measures to address the issue, including improving the social security network and the health care system, to ensure that "elderly people are properly cared for"

China is building a nationwide social security network which will focus on the needs of the elderly, according to a statement jointly issued by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council.

Statistics showed that 175 million people were enrolled in pension plans across China last year. More than 43.6 million retirees are receiving pensions.

A pilot program providing cooperative medicare in rural areas has been operating in some regions of China since 2003. By last June, the program had been extended to 1,399 counties, covering 495 million rural people or 73 percent of the elderly in the countryside.

The central government has required local governments to give preferential treatment to people over the age of 70 who are part of the new medicare program.

By the end of 2005, China had 1.5 million beds in various care centers for the elderly. The government said it will add 2.2 million beds for the aged in rural areas and 800,000 for those in cities within the next four years.

Experts have labeled the next 15 years as a "golden" period for China's economic development, during which the percentage of the population in the work force will be relatively high because the country's birth rate remains low.

"We will make full use of the next 15 years and take effective measures to avoid the side effects of an aging population," Zhang said.

Source: Xinhua