EXCITING NEW
EXPORT MARKET
FOR HK

Hong Kong has discovered an exciting new commodity to export - old folk.

With Chinese people already noted for their longevity and the general world trend moving toward a longer lifespan, increasing numbers of the old are struggling to make ends meet in Hong Kong's crowded and expensive housing market.

One new solution is to send them to retirement homes across the border in mainland China, where living costs are cheaper. Hong Kong entrepreneurs, never slow to spot an opportunity, are now rushing to invest in this exciting new market, putting money into old folks' homes in neighbouring Guangdong province, where many of the care staff speak Cantonese - the Chinese language used by most HK pensioners.

Mainland officials say 2,000 of the 16,000 people living in such homes in the province are from Hong Kong.

Such is the interest among Hong Kong families that operators of more than 30 retirement homes are to stage an exhibition of their facilities at a conference centre in Kowloon Bay early next month.

The territory doesn't have the best PR image when it comes to care of its elders. Although there is an old age pension system, pictures of destitute old men living in cage rooms just big enough to turn from side to side have shocked outsiders in the past.

Normally those unfortunates are the exception, having no living relatives able or willing to look after them.

Respect for the elderly is an extremely important aspect of Chinese culture, and families normally step in to plug the care gap only filled in western societies by state welfare.

But western social trends such as divorce are now affecting China, making it more difficult for parents to live at home - especially if their children re-marry and acquire a new set of in-laws.