(Yicai Global) March 4 -- A research head at Chinese home appliances giant Midea Group will propose at China’s key annual policy-setting meetings that the country make greater effort in the field of smart homes for the elderly.

To help seniors take care of themselves and improve the quality of their lives at home, the use of smart products, including assistive devices, home devices, and health monitors, should be promoted, Li Jinbo, director of Midea’s innovation research institute for home air-conditioners and a delegate to the National People’s Congress, will propose at this year’s Two Sessions.

Local governments should issue standards and criteria for aged-friendly smart homes, with a focus on low-income seniors and those living in less-developed areas, according to Li’s proposal. The most urgent effort is needed in rural areas where more elderly people live alone because younger folk have moved to the big cities for work.

The Two Sessions are the annual meetings of the NPC, China’s national legislature, and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body, whose members can make proposals which the government must respond to within six months.

The fifth annual session of the 13th National Committee of the CPPCC opens in Beijing today, and the 13th NPC will open its fifth annual session tomorrow.

Smart devices are designed with young people in mind and do not suit the elderly, creating a digital divide, Li will say. So China should encourage firms to design and develop products for the elderly, offer smart device subsidies, and create tutorials to help them use these devices.

Li will also suggest that the government push companies to design elderly-friendly smart products, ones with larger screens and fonts, higher sound volume, and bigger battery capacity.

The number of Chinese aged 60 and older was 264 million in 2020, accounting for 18.7 percent of the total population, per the seventh national census. Those aged 65 or above stood at 190 million, or 13.5 percent of the total.

Editor: Futura Costaglione