China has over 170,000 elderly-care institutions, facilities: official

BEIJING -- China had a total of 173,300 elderly-care service institutions and facilities at the end of June, and over 140,000 were at the community level, a Chinese official said Tuesday.

Over half of the institutions nationwide are privately run, and in Shanghai and Beijing, privately run elderly-care institutions account for over 80 percent of the total, said Li Banghua, a senior official with China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, at a symposium held on coping with the aging population.

China has also been working to improve the quality of elderly-care services while providing more funding.

A special campaign launched in 2017 has eliminated over 390,000 potential hazards in the country's nursing homes.

Over 5 billion yuan (about $712.26 million) in annual central government funding has also been provided for the sector since 2016, said Li, adding that private investment from society has also been booming.

Efforts will be made to help transform the government's role from an elderly-care service provider to a supervisor to let the market play the decisive role, according to Li.