Preparing for tomorrow: Fu Shou Yuan launches prepay services

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China’s ageing population and scarce urban land supply have pushed up prices for grave sites, igniting a search for alternative burial methods. Students place bouquets at a martyr cemetery ahead of China's Qingming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day, in Pingxiang. Photo: Reuters

Published: 4:39pm, 3 Apr 2017Updated: 10:56pm, 3 Apr 2017

Fu Shou Yuan International, the mainland’s largest provider of funeral services, has pioneered the sale of pre-need funeral plans as a way of diversifying its businesses from the sale of burial sites amid changing cultural attitudes toward death.

About 100 senior citizens in Shanghai have bought the service, which includes cremation, disposition of the ashes of the deceased, arrangements for the funeral ceremonies and related logistics work.

Zhao Yu, board secretary of Hong Kong-listed Fu Shou Yuan, told the South China Morning Post that the company was also actively lobbying national authorities to formulate standards to govern the business.

“The sale of the pre-need plan is only on a trial basis,” he said. “We hope the government could take the lead in creating and regulating the market.”

The trial sales arrangement includes three types of contracts costing 6,000 yuan (US$870), 8,000 yuan and 12,000 yuan.

The mainland’s civil affairs authorities retain tight control on the funeral services market, including oversight of business operations involving funeral houses and cemeteries, while also maintaining controls on prices.

Focus Investment Management chief executive Jiao Bing is an advocate for reforming the funeral system.