A doctor offers health check-up for an elderly woman (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Adaption to populationaging is the focus of discussion at a two-day workshop that opened in Hanoi onJuly 17.
Jointly held by the Health Ministry and the Asia– Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat, the event has drawn 200delegates working in different fields from the APEC economies, the UnitedNations’ agencies, international organisations, socio- political organisations,research institutes and universities.
Addressing the event, Deputy Health MinisterPham Le Tuan said Vietnam has around 10.1 million elderly people, accounting for11 percent of the population. There are two million people aged above 80.
The rate of elderly people in Vietnam isforecast to reach 17 percent by 2030 and 25 percent by 2050, according to Tuan.
The Deputy Minister expressed his hope that theworkshop will help APEC economies, especially Vietnam, make policies, settargets and develop action plans to adapt to the population aging in the comingtime.
The workshop is also expected to help turnchallenges from the process into opportunities for socio-economic development,he added.
Experts developed scenarios on population agingin APEC, covering challenges and opportunities in different fields.
They shared initiatives on community- andfamily-based elderly nursing models as part of measures to adapt to populationaging.
These suggestions will be discussed at theHealth Policy Dialogue, the meetings of the Health Working Group and HealthMinisters’ meetings in the framework of the third APEC Senior Officials Meeting(SOM 3) in HCM City in August.
The population of the APEC economies accountsfor 40.5 percent of the world’s total but nearly 50 percent of the elderly on theglobe. Most APEC economies are facing the population aging issue, particularlyChina, Russia, the US and Japan.
The demographic change will have great impactson economic growth, employment, saving, investment, health care and socialsecurity, among others.-VNA
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