Shanghai will strengthen and optimize the community-based senior care facilities in its five new towns in Jiading, Qingpu, Songjiang, Fengxian, and Nanhui districts, ensuring that these facilities are located within 15 minutes of every elderly person, Shanghai's civil affairs official announced on Thursday during a news conference on the implementation of the city's first elderly-care services law.

The law will take effect on March 20.

Over the past four decades, Shanghai has been exploring ways to create an effective and efficient senior care system. Through the process, the city has accumulated many good experiences and practices, which have laid an important foundation for the formulation of the elderly-care service regulation, said Jiang Rui, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Civil Service.

Comprising 15 chapters and 110 articles, the regulation stipulates that community-based senior care facilities should have a space of at least 40 square meters per 1,000 permanent residents. It also has a chapter dedicated to the care of senior citizens with mobility impairments.

Shanghai, which had more than 5.18 million of residents aged over 60 as of the end of 2019, is now home to more than 700 senior care institutions with more than 150,000 beds.