China's population aging at fastest clip ever

BEIJING (Reuters) - The proportion of people aged 60 and above in China rose at the fastest clip in history last year, state media said on Tuesday, and they now represent more than 12 percent of the population.

China registered a 7.25 million increase in its aged population in 2009 to 167.14 million people, or 12.5 percent of the total, Xinhua news agency quoted Wu Yushao, deputy head of the China National Committee on Aging, as saying.

"The proportion of aged people in the population rose by half a percentage point to 12.5 percent, the largest annual increase in history," it paraphrased Wu as saying.

"That will be a huge challenge for our country," Wu said. "The economy, the retirement system and services for the elderly are still too weak to handle the challenge."

The number of people in their 80s or older approached 19 million last year, and will rise by 1 million annually, Xinhua added, without giving a timeframe.

The government said earlier this month that China's urban population would surpass its rural population for the first time by 2015, with the number of Chinese living in towns and cities set to top 700 million.

Li Bin, director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said that the world's most populous country is projected to have 1.39 billion citizens by 2015, up from 1.32 billion at the end of 2008.

The number of people over 60 would pass 200 million, she said. An average of 8 million are expected to turn 60 each year, 3.2 million more than the average in 2006-2010.

The population dependency ratio, the proportion of those too young or old to work, would rise for the first time after falling for over 40 years, while the ratio of those aged 15-59 would peak and then slowly start to fall.

China began enforcing a one-child policy three decades to curb the rapidly growing population, though it has eased restrictions over the past few years partly in response to the growing number of retirees.

Demographers say China will probably become the first country in the world to age before it gets rich, putting a huge burden on resources and finances, and potentially bringing social unrest.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard, editing by Andrew Marshall)