CCIEE and JICA Signs MOU on Promoting China-Japan Medical and Nursing Care in the Aging Society

On May 24, CCIEE and JICA signed an MOU on promoting China-Japan medical and nursing care in the aging society in Beijing. Zhang Dawei, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of CCIEE, Fumio Shimizu, Minister of the Embassy of Japan in China, Miho Sasaki, Director-General of JICA China Office, spoke at the ceremony. Jiang Chunli, Head of CCIEE’s General Affairs Office and Yuan Youwei, NEF Secretary-General and Deputy Head of CCIEE’s External Affairs Department, attended the event.

At present, China’s aging population is growing faster. China is likely to enter a moderately aging society during the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan period when some provinces and municipalities would turn into heavily aging ones. China so far has formulated the primary mechanisms of elderly care and healthcare insurances and piloted long-term nursing insurance nationwide, but problems like weak foundation for professional training and insufficient industrialization of health service remains prominent. Japan stepped into the aging society in 1990s and people aged above 65 years old accounted for more than 28.7% of Japanese total population by 2020. But now Japan has set up comprehensive mechanism of elderly care, healthcare and nursing. In Japan, there are elderly and nursing care institutions accumulating abundant experience in specialized management, craftsmanship-based manufacturing industry producing assistive devices for the elderly and intelligent devices, as well as advanced education and training system for health and elderly care.

Despite the different phases of aging society China and Japan are in, there is spacious room for the two to initiate cooperation on medical and nursing care. In recent years, both Chinese and Japanese leaders have highlighted bilateral cooperation on the development of elderly and nursing care in their meetings. Both located in East Asia, China and Japan are similar in social and cultural philosophy. In terms of countering aging society, China sees fast development in medical and nursing care industry and has a huge market while Japan has accumulated plenty of experience both at government and civil levels. The two countries are complementary in mechanism building, talent cultivation and research and development of products, etc. By launching collaboration on medical and nursing care, China and Japan can improve the ability to address aging population together, facilitating economic and social development in both countries.

The MOU between CCIEE and JICA aims at strengthening bilateral cooperation on addressing challenges brought by aging. The two organizations expected fruitful outcomes from the cooperation in next three years through joint efforts and exchanges.