The city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province has built 646 nursing service centers in all its urban residential areas, the local Harbin Daily reports.

The announcement comes from a symposium to discuss a visit by members of the Harbin CPPCC to the Daowai and Hulan districts, where they reviewed some nursing home operations, on Aug 21.

The CPPCC members suggested that Harbin’s major industries, such as agriculture and food processing, look for ways to do business with the nursing and healthcare sector especially in relation to an aging population. By the end of last year, Harbin had more than 1.7 million people above the age of 60, or 17.8 percent of the city’s population, or 2.9 percentage points above the provincial average, and 2.3 points above the county average.