The Seventh World Health Maintenance Assembly, which opens in Yanggao county, Shanxi province, on Sept 7, will focus on the coordinated development of the region's economy and its health-maintenance business, with a theme of "Back to nature, a peaceful life, green environment, and health maintenance".

The idea is to promote more scientific health maintenance, develop beneficial good health-maintenance industry, create a good environment for maintaining health, and increase international exchanges on health maintenance.

Taking part will be specialists and research institutes from China and abroad who are dedicated to health maintenance and related research, along with manufacturers and providers of healthcare products, all of them working for economic benefits and turning Yanggao into a health maintenance haven.

Yanggao, with its large number of nonagenarians, is a known as a home of longevity and it is endowed with culture, a good environment and convenient transportation, and a good place for the assembly. And, thanks to greater public awareness of body-building and health, Yanggao has good prospects in the industry.

In the future, it wants to bring more talent, capital, information, and technology and integrate them with its advantages to establish industrial clusters with the theme "green ecology", "red classics", "clubs and manors", "spa and health", "castles and the Great Wall", "original scenery", "religious culture", and "wetland park", for a health-maintenance zone along with modern agriculture, healthy tourism for Yanggao and even Datong. There have been six of these assemblies since 1999.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw