'Aging population issue could be addressed through public-private initiatives'

"Aging population is a reality and has emerged as a daunting challenge to Asia, which can be addressed by public-private initiatives with proactive measures," this was stated by Tariq Sayeed, the newly appointed Vice President of Confederation of Asia Pacific Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CACCI) at its 24th conference, organised by Ceylon Chamber and Federation of Sri Lankan Chambers of Commerce and Industry on July 5-7, 2010 at Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Referring to World Aging Population report, 2009, Sayeed revealed that since out of 737 million aging population (over 60 years of age) world-wide, Asia had 440 million such people. As such, the respective governments in Asian countries will have to find out ways and means to mitigate economic implications of aging population". He that 54 percent such people reside in Asia, which would have to face more challenges of economic implications of aging population, as the demo-graphical trend was expected to remain unchanged. Therefore, Asia, as a whole, should prepare itself to face the dire future challenges.
World's population, older than 60 years of age, was 8 percent in 1950, which after a period of 59 years, increased to 11 percent, however such population, which today has surpassed over 700 million, will swell to 2 billion by 2050, accounting for 22 percent over the next four decades. This would indeed be one of the future challenges for the entire world particularly for Asia, which will have to manage a larger size of such population. The increase will add socio-economic and health consequences and put more pressure on the Governments for allocation of more fiscal support, he maintained.
CACCI VP said in South Asian region, about 100 million population has been registered as over 60 years, which is 25 percent of the population in Asia and 13 percent of the total aging population of the world. Sri Lanka has the highest number of population aging over 60 years with 11 percent, followed by India (7 percent), and Pakistan and Nepal (6.1 percent each).
Maldives and Bangladesh (6 percent each) while Afghanistan stays lowest with 3.8 percent in South Asian countries. Similarly, the ranking of South Asia in terms of percentage of population over 60 years is 123rd in 200 countries of the world. Sri Lanka with 66th ranks takes the lead followed by India (105th), Pakistan (122nd), Nepal (124th), Bangladesh (127th), Maldives (129th) and Afghanistan (190th), which indicates that Afghanistan will be the least affected of the economic implications of aging population. He urged for exploiting expertise, knowledge and experience of educated aging population by involving them into economic activities, which could be translated into meaningful and productive activities.
The session was chaired by Ambassador Benedicto V. Yujuico, CACCI Executive Vice President and Chairman Emeritus, Athena e-Services, Philippine. Other panellists on the occasion were Professor Alfred Chen Cheung Ming, Director, Asia-Pacific Institute of Aging Studies, Dr W Indralal de Silva - Professor and Head, Department of Demography, University of Colombo, and Jerome Pierce, Programme Director, Help Age Sri Lanka.-PR