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HONG KONG: Christy Yao Xue is hot property these days. Yao, who runs a retirement home in Beijing, is being head-hunted for her skills and experience by mainland developers, private equity funds and international operators of retirement housing schemes.
With one-third of China's population likely to be aged 60 and over by 2050, local and international investors are lining up to invest in retirement industry projects, including nursing homes. That has put operators of local nursing homes in the spotlight.
"I have been approached by mainland developers and international investors. They want to recruit me," said Yao, who with another investor founded a retirement home called Le-Amor in Xiangshan, Beijing, in 2009.
But she has rejected all the offers. "I established this retirement home by myself. It's like my baby. I cannot leave my baby and go to take care of other people's babies," she said.
At home, the pretty young mother cares for her own two-year-old baby, but that does not stop her from taking care of the elderly at work. "This is my dream. I have wanted to establish and operate a retirement home since I was young."
The fact that the demands of work in the countryside meant that her parents were away from home when she was little, and her grandparents were unable to live with her and take care of her, partly explained why she had the dream of creating a retirement home, Dalian-born Yao said.
After graduation she first went to work in the sales and marketing division of mainland developer Soho China for six years. "One day, chairman Pan Shiyi wanted to give me a promotion. I rejected it and told him my plan to establish a retirement house," Yao said.
She told Pan she would continue to do her job well, but when the time was right she would leave to fulfil her dream. The time came in 2006 when Yao filed an application to go to the United States to do voluntary work for a retirement home and learn how to run a retirement home to international standards.
Americans did not know China well, she recalled.
"An American said it was impossible for China to have international-standard retirement homes. He got his impressions of China from the movies of Zhang Yimou [a mainland director of films portraying stoic resilience of poor Chinese people in the face of hardship and adversity].
That judgment made Yao even more determined to establish a quality retirement home in China.
She now plans to open more retirement homes under the Le-Amor brand and believes the rapidly greying population is becoming big business on the mainland. "Business prospects are not only restricted to nursing homes, but include retirement tourism," she said.
Last year, there were 177 million people on the mainland aged over 60, according to central government figures. Of those, 20 million were aged over 80. By 2050, about 100 million people on the mainland are expected to be aged over 80. But the supply of homes for the elderly is limited and they are of poor quality. — SCMP
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