CHINA will have 174 million senior citizens aged over 60 in 2010, or 12.78 percent of the entire population, said a report on the aging population published yesterday.

In the document, issued by the China National Committee on Aging with the approval of the State Council, 21.32 million of those senior citizens will be over 80.

China's aging population, the largest in the world, is putting great pressure on the nation's economic and social development. The number of senior citizens will peak in 2030 when the national population hits 1.465 billion, the document said.

According to the fifth national population census, the average life expectancy of the Chinese population reached 71.4 years old in 2000, 2.85 years longer than in 1990.

Commenting on these developments, a renowned Chinese expert said the country needs to adopt a package of measures, including postponing the retirement age, to deal with population aging.

"The retirement age for men and women should be postponed to 63 or 65, or even further to deal with a labor shortfall," said Hu An'gang, director of the National Conditions Research Center of Tsinghua University.

Under Chinese law, a man retires at 60, women cadres at 55 and women workers at 50.

China's Social Sciences Academic Press published a book, which contains research reports by Hu and other leading Chinese experts on the issue of aging population, last month.

It predicts that by the middle of this century, there will be more than 400 million senior citizens over 60, or 30 percent of the entire population. By then, every two workers will need to provide for one senior citizen.

"One of the direct results of the aging society is a drop in the labor force supply, which leads to an overall reshaping of society," said Gu Baochang, professor of the population and development center of Renmin University in Beijing.

In the book, the experts also recommend improving education to enhance skills of the workforce, which may partly offset the impact of a labor force decrease, and improving health care.

Editor: Yan