China under pressure to cover aging population

BEIJING - China will face financial pressure to cover the growing population of senior people with its social insurance funds, a government official said on Monday.

Chen Liang, an official with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MoHRSS), told an international symposium that the country needs to increase financial input into the funds and diversify investment channels to enhance returns.

To tackle the payment pressure, Chen, the director of the Social Insurance Funds Management Department under the MoHRSS, said China has to preserve and increase the value of its social insurance funds and ensure the sustainability of its policies.

The country's social insurance funds contain five parts, the basic endowment insurance for senior citizens, basic medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance and maternity insurance.

In 2010, 178 million people in China were 60 years of age or older, accounting for 13.26 percent of the total population.

The number will double by 2030, Chen said.

According to a report published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in September 2010, China will overtake Japan to become the world's most aging society by 2030.

By the end of last year, a total of 304.27 million working people, retirees and beneficiaries were covered by basic urban endowment insurance for senior citizens, an increase of 20.36 million from a year earlier, according to the MoHRSS.

Among them, 45.43 million were rural migrant workers, an increase of 4.03 million from 2011.