GUANGZHOU: More and more elderly people from Hong Kong are moving into retirement homes in Guangzhou to spend their remaining years, according to the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Civil Affairs.

More than 300 Hong Kong pensioners are currently living in the city's private rest homes.

"Good conditions and services, and low prices are the main attractions," said an official with Guangzhou Shouxing Building.

The building is the largest private rest home in Guangzhou, with about 80 pensioners from Hong Kong.

Tse Shunfa, 68, is a Hong Kong pensioner who moved into the building three years ago.

Even though Tse has six children, he wanted to move to a rest home long ago to ease the pressure on his children.

But the short supply of rest homes in Hong Kong made it difficult for him to find a bed there.

"Retirement homes in Hong Kong are small, crowded and very expensive," Tse told China Daily. "I would have to pay at least HK$5,000 (US$600) a month."

In Guangzhou Shouxing Building, Tse spent 40,000 yuan (US$4,800) to buy a room of 25 square metres, which would have cost over HK$1 million (US$125,000) in Hong Kong.

Tse pays another 750 yuan (US$90) every month for cleaning, meals and other daily services.

The elderly man said he was enjoying life in Guangzhou, adding he expected to live in the building until he dies.

"Most cases in our rest homes are similar to Tse's," said a building spokesman, surnamed Yang.

Pensioners from Hong Kong say Guangzhou is their first choice for a retirement home, but they do not like other mainland cities. Yang said this was because they all speak the same dialect, Cantonese.

The booming economy of Guangzhou and similar living standards to Hong Kong are drawing old people to the city, Yang added.

"But we are not encouraging Hong Kong people to spend their old age in Guangzhou," said Li Weijie, director of the city's Bureau of Civil Affairs.

Guangzhou has about 900,000 people aged over 60, accounting for 12.5 percent of the city's total population.

"Currently, only private retirement homes provide services for Hong Kong people," said Li.

The total 191 private and public-owned retirement homes have 20,344 beds.

The city's Elderly People's Home is a public-owned rest home. Vice-director Huang Shaokuan said they did not have any Hong Kong people as they should meet the demands of locals first.

(China Daily 06/30/2005 page3)