Silver economy develops niche markets for seniors

The growing silver economy in China has developed various niche markets providing low-cost and one-stop services to the senior.

In east China's Jiangsu Province and nearby Shanghai, a novel type of restaurants emerge for elderly diners with lunch and diner combined to cost no more than 100 yuan (around 14 U.S. dollars) on average per person, accompanied by a wide variety of entertainments.

The Yitian Club, or One Day Club in English, in Suzhou, a major city in Jiangsu, is packed with senior customers at 10:00 every day.

The restaurant offers group meal packages priced at approximately 100 yuan per person, covering both lunch and dinner, each serving 18 dishes.

"Vegetarian dishes are what we need in summer, as they are light and go well with our tastes," said a customer.

The club also has a KTV where the senior customers enjoy themselves singing, dancing and chatting over tea throughout the afternoon after lunch. "We can sing and dine in the club. It offers all the services for us," said another customer.

Qian Ziqing, manager of the club, said he opened the restaurant for senior folks because he was confident in the potential of China's silver economy.

After finding that seniors love to go to nearby rural farm houses to enjoy themselves, where they have meals at low cost plus recreations, Qian decided to introduce the business model to urban areas.

"We mean to provide delicious dishes and high-quality entertainments at urban centers where transportation is convenient, but at prices close to those at the rural farm houses, so folks could happily spend all day together in the place. Now, we can say it's hard to book a table in our club," said Qian.

The innovative 100-year-a-day model of the club enables the senior folks to re-gain the pleasure of social life, and fills in a gap in the traditional elderly care services.

Currently, the scale of China's silver economy reached about seven trillion yuan (about 960 billion U.S. dollars), accounting for about six percent of the country's GDP, and that number is expected to grow to 30 trillion yuan by 2035.

Silver economy develops niche markets for seniors

China and Canada are complementary in their resources and the two countries can tap the full potential of their win-win cooperation for their good, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said in Beijing.

He made the remarks during an exclusive interview with China Media Group (CMG) ahead of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's visit to China.

Carney will pay an official visit to China from January 14 to 17, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.

"I hope that the visit of the prime minister of Canada, it will be a new departure in the relation between Canada and China. And because of the turmoil created by the president of the United States, we are looking for diversifying our economy with other nations. And my judgment always said that China and Canada are complementary. You have the people, we have the land, we have the resources, and we have some people, too. So, we can help each other to grow in peace and prosperity," he said.

Regarding how to resolve differences, Chretien said dialog is always the best way out.

"I believe in dialog. If we have disagreement, we have to talk about it. But at the end, every nation is a sovereign nation. So, we have to respect that, too. It's internal decision by the people of China to decide the future of China like it is for the Canadians to decide the future of Canada," he said.

China, Canada should leverage complementarity for mutual benefit: former Canadian PM