Damien Green

Opinion | Ageing Hong Kong can be the Greater Bay Area’s pensions and healthcare hub

Hong Kong can and should pioneer health and retirement solutions for the ageing Greater Bay Area, given its advanced insurance sector and healthcare reputation

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Damien Green

Published: 1:00am, 8 Sep 2023Updated: 1:32am, 8 Sep 2023

The 86 million people of the Greater Bay Area face a future healthcare and retirement funding problem that Hong Kong can help to fix.

Running out of money in retirement and no longer being able to afford quality healthcare are grim prospects that confront rapidly ageing societies. With one of the longest life expectancies in the world, Hong Kong knows these anxieties all too well. China as a whole is entering an era of rapid ageing too, bringing similar systemic worries but on a dramatically larger scale and with infinitely more significant consequences.

China’s rapidly ageing population is an emerging mega-trend, I believe, given factors such as the scale of the population, the consumption power of the Chinese middle class and the country’s centrality to global geopolitical stability. Given Hong Kong’s natural economic entwinement with the mainland, it is in the city’s interests to take this sub-set of macroeconomic risks for China very seriously indeed.

The United Nations estimates that Hong Kong will have the world’s oldest population by 2050, with 40.6 per cent aged 65 and older. The Greater Bay Area as a whole is also ageing. A study last year found that, with the elderly making up more than 7 per cent of the population, and an aged-child ratio exceeding 20 per cent, the Greater Bay Area meets international definitions of an ageing society.

These challenges open up an important role for Hong Kong to contribute to the country’s social and economic progress. As a hub of innovation, Hong Kong can pioneer health and retirement funding solutions for the Greater Bay Area and become a hub for best practices. There are significant economic opportunities for Hong Kong in this equation too.

In Hong Kong, we have had to get a head start on addressing the economic issues associated with a rapidly ageing population. Ensuring sufficient retirement savings and boosting private healthcare funding have been areas of public policy focus for well over a generation in the city.