Beijing to build more nursing homes

BEIJING - More government-run nursing homes for middle and low-income earners are being built in Beijing, the municipal development and reform commission said in a statement on Monday.

Meanwhile, authorities will subsidize the construction and expansion of privately-run nursing homes. Each new bed in a private nursing home is entitled to a construction subsidy of 8,000 yuan (1,280 U.S. dollars) to 16,000 yuan, it said.

Nursing homes in Beijing currently have 90,000 beds, and the city government plans to increase that to 120,000 by the end of 2015.

By the end of 2011, nearly 2.5 million residents, or 19.4 percent of the city's registered citizens, were aged 60 or above.

China faces a rapidly aging population, and the country's one-child policy has rendered its traditional household-centered elderly care almost impossible in the future.

By the end of 2011, 185 million people in China were aged 60 or above, and the number is expected to further rise to account for about 30 percent of China's total population of nearly 1.4 billion by the middle of this century.