NANJING - People at or over 60 years old in East China's Jiangsu province will exceed 27 percent of its total population in 2025, local health authorities said.

Jiangsu faces a severely aging population only after Shanghai and Beijing, said Qiu Zesen, deputy director of provincial health commission.

The elderly with local "hukou," or household registration status, in the province reached 18.34 million, accounting for 23.32 percent of the total, at the end of 2019, Qiu said.

Last year, the elderly population in Jiangsu increased by 288,900, with the proportion of the elderly in total population rising by 0.28 percentage points from a year ago, Qiu said.

The population at or over 80 rose to 2.8 million in 2019 from 900,000 in 1999, he said.