China has finished a draft amendment to the law concerning the rights and interests of senior citizens, said a senior official from the Ministry of Civil Affairs Tuesday.

Qu Shuhui made the remarks when attending a panel discussion at the ongoing fifth session of the 11th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, the political advisory body.

Qu said the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the top legislature, will deliberate the draft amendment for the first time in June this year. He added that proposals from political advisors and lawmakers have been adopted during a 10 year-long drafting process, but did not reveal the content of the draft.

The law was put in force in 1996.

People aged 60 or above had reached 167 million in China by the end of 2011. To improve services for the increasing number of senior citizens, Qu said the central government is building a social service system for senior citizens based on the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), besides drafting the amendment.

"A comprehensive, sustainable, well-organized and supervised service system with moderate size will be established in 2015 according to the plan, which is the first of its kind that made a dedicated state-level plan for a service system for senior citizens," he said.

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2012-05-18 Xinhua News