Chamber calls for Macau-Zhuhai cooperation to address aging, birthrate challenges

The Macao Chamber of Commerce (ACM) calls for deeper Zhuhai-Macau cross-border cooperation to ease the elderly care shortage and boost the low birth rate, issues affecting Macau’s sustainable social development and economic diversification.

Chan Yat Peng, a member of the Strategy Research Committee of the ACM, says the accelerating aging of the population, coexisting with the trend of fewer children, has become a significant issue affecting Macau.

Currently, residents aged 60 and above account for over 15% of Macau’s population, and the shortage of places in elderly care homes continues to widen.

To combat this, the government is deepening its policies concerning the elderly and young children, aiming to improve the livelihood security framework across the entire life cycle.

In this context, deepening cross-border elderly care cooperation with Zhuhai not only responds to the needs of Macau’s elderly but can also combine the elderly and young children sectors to jumpstart the silver economy, according to Chan.

“This would unlock the dividends from Macau–Hengqin integration and stimulate momentum for Macau’s appropriate economic diversification,” Chan said in the statement, as cited on the association’s website.

“Zhuhai-Macau cross-border cooperation possesses unique advantages of “resource complementarity + policy overlay + industrial linkage,” laying a solid foundation for related development,” he added.

Macau’s aging population is characterized by rapid increase, high density, and diverse needs, with limited space for elderly care services and high-end supply.

However, Chan said it has mature service standards, professional talent, and abundant financial resources, adding that Zhuhai has already established a comprehensive three-tiered elderly service network, with scaled-up capacity for providing inclusive childcare.

Furthermore, the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, as a pilot area for standardized elderly care services, has served over 17,000 Macau elderly people cumulatively by 2025.

Currently, a favorable pattern has formed between the two cities, featuring complementary supply and demand in elderly care, linkage of care and upbringing resources, and an overlay of Macau-Hengqin policies and markets.

“There is an urgent need to overcome setbacks such as policy coordination and mutual recognition of standards to advance elderly and young children policies from merely ensuring livelihoods to empowering the economy,” said Chan.

He argued that Zhuhai and Macau could establish a special task force to promote cross-border policy, extending Macau’s elderly welfare benefits to designated institutions in Zhuhai. This would involve establishing a mechanism for cross-border fund transfers, expanding the scope of Zhuhai medical institutions covered by Macau’s health insurance, and exploring a cross-border medical reserve fund system to enable real-time settlement of emergency hospitalization expenses.

Chan also recommended three specific areas for improvement. The first is to leverage resource integration to create an “elderly care + childcare” industrial integration model.

Relying on core areas near Macau such as Hengqin and Xiangzhou, the cities could plan and construct a Macau–Hengqin Dual-Age Group Industrial Integration Park, develop high-end elderly care supporting facilities, and introduce professional operating entities. The “medical–nursing–convalescence + childcare services” model should be promoted to form a Zhuhai–Macau cross-border medical–nursing consortium and integrate high-quality health and medical resources from both places.

The second is to learn from the pilot experience in Hengqin to standardize service guidelines in areas such as cross-border elderly care nursing and infant and toddler care, ensuring service homogeneity and high quality.

Also, a mechanism should be established for the joint training of multi-skilled talent and mutual recognition of qualifications, incorporating relevant professions into the Macau youth employment and entrepreneurship support system and using multiple policies to attract Macau youth to engage in dual-age group industries, helping address the talent gap and broaden employment channels.

Lastly, the local elderly care service institutions should be guided to participate in the investment and operation of Zhuhai projects, exporting management expertise and brand resources. Ricaela Diputado

Gov’t hopes for higher birth rate in Year of the Horse

Tai Wa Hou, director of the Conde S. Januário Hospital, said the birth rate is difficult to predict but hopes young couples in Macau “will have more children,” given that this Year of the Horse “is considered auspicious.”

After recording the lowest number of newborns in five decades in 2025, the Health Bureau (SSM) hopes local young couples will have more children in this Lunar Year of the Horse and that births in Macau will rise again to more than 3,000, according to a TDM report.

The SSM is concerned about the continuous decline in the birth rate and hopes the number of newborns will increase again and exceed the 3,000 mark. The issue was raised after Macau recorded only 2,871 babies born last year, the lowest number since 1978.