From March 19 to 20, the Seminar on the Development Strategy of Yichang Elderly Care Industry with Asia Development Bank’s Technical Assistance was held in Yichang City. ADB officials, domestic and foreign pension consultants and representatives of the relevant functional departments and the elderly care agencies of the city discussed the achievement--the "Development Plan of Yichang City’s Elderly Care Service Facilities". According to the seminar, the program will be upgraded to be Strategic Development Plan of Yichang City’s Elderly Care System, which will be regarded as a model all over Hubei Province and even across the country. It is of great significance for the improvement of the knowledge system of the elderly care service planning of our country.
　　In October, 2013, the Asian Development Bank and the Ministry of Finance approved the implementation of the Yichang elderly care industry development strategy research program of technical assistance. Yichang City regarded the project as the starting point, and actively cooperated with the experts from ADB technical assistance team to promote the development of the elderly care industry. Since the implementation of the project six months ago, it has achieved remarkable results.
　　During the same period, foreign experts hired by the ADB composed an investigation team and became familiar with the status quo of the elderly care system and major difficulties of Yichang through channels like home interviews, site visits, policy advice, etc. As a result, the "Proposals on the Planning of the Construction of Yichang City’s Endowment Services Facilities" and the "Experience of International and Domestic Elderly Care System" came into being.
　　In order to put these achievements into practice, Yichang hired a Japanese company, Xin Shikang Co. Ltd. which mainly focuses on medical and endowment consulting, to plan the "Comprehensive Demonstration Project of Yichang City’s Endowment Service" and proposed a new design of Yichang endowment project based on reality, which is also one of the topics discussed in this seminar.
　　Xu Wei, financial secretary and vice chairman of the CPPCC of Yichang City, said that ADB’s technical assistance projects brought the "timely rain" to us when we are facing the double troubles of theory and practice. Furthermore, with the intelligence of excellent domestic and foreign experts, together with the cooperation between ADB and Yichang City, he believes that Yichang elderly care problems will be cracked, and we will build Yichang City into a model endowment city with scientific design, effective operation, abundant capital investment. Moreover, more people will benefit from the endowment system. (Reporter Wang Suzhi; correspondent: Peng Jingbo)