Senior citizens have lunch in a community old-age day care center in Yinchuan, capital of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Oct. 28, 2014. In Yinchuan, community-based day care centers for the elderly set up in recent years have offered an alternative to senior citizens' life after retirement. Elders who join these day care centers attend various leisure activities during the day. Such community day care centers can also help relieve the pressure on family members who work away from home and don't have enough time to look after the elderly people. [Photo: Xinhua]

With a China-Australia Free Trade Agreement expected to come into force by the end of the year, preferential access to each other's markets will open, including the health care sector.

Australia's Medical service suppliers will be able to establish hospitals and for-profit eldercare institutions in China.

We all get old one day. But China, the world's most populous country, is probably ageing faster.

According to Hao Fuqing, a senior official from National Development and Reform Commission, China has galloped towards an aged society since the turn of the 21st century.

"So far, we have 212 million senior citizens over the age of 60, accounting for 15% of the whole population. Presumably, by 2020, the number of elderly in China will reach 243 million. Coming to 2050, the amount may jump to 300 million."

Although many worry about a prospective labor shortage and acute transformation of the society, China's aging profile may not be a bad omen for businesses.

Susan Malone is the managing director of Independent Management Group, an Australian company providing senior living consulting service. She has been the eye-witness of the birth of elderly care market in the country.

“Six years ago, when I came to the early conferences that were being held, there were very small conferences. If people from the development sector said to me: 'What do you do?' I said: 'Senior's living.' Then (they responded with) 'What? What is that?' And now when you say senior's living, (they would say) 'what a growing market! How wonderful! Could we talk?'"

Malone's firm is not the only foreign senior care provider that scents the emerging market.

Peter Hennessy works for a retirement community catering for overseas Chinese. After successfully opening operations in Malaysia and Indonesia, the company is looking forward to scale up.

"(At the) present time, we have been looking in China, Huangzhou and also Wuhan. We have had approaches to go and getting (got) involved with partners there. Whether it is a working model already (established) for Australian aged care facility, or retirement living facility in Shanghai, I am going to look at that. "

However, there are certain elements that may hinder entrants.

Dean of the Institute of Health Industry from Beijing Geely University, Dr Wu Danxing, points out that although the sheer number of seniors in China promises a lucrative future, the widespread stereotypes, absence of qualified staff plus the deficiency of standards and regulation prevents foreign firms from moving forward.

"China has its unique characteristics. We cannot let our current strategy be continued but at same time, blindly following other countries is no-go. We cannot be commercialized like America, or learn from welfare states. What we could draw on from Australia is how it built up its aged care system."

But Michael Clifton, a Minister from the Australian Embassy to China, remains optimistic.

"In social context, the challenges are precisely the challenges that Australia faces but all be on a much lesser scale. So whether it is skill training, facility operation, architecture design, all these various elements of health care sector are growing and developing in Australia and they are at the stage where they want to take that expertise offshore. As China's been such a large market, it's about learning, it's about investing into the future. "

According to the recently released five-year plan, China will fully open its elderly care sector in the near future.