Ningbo unveils five-year plan to improve fitness levels

Hundreds of people practice tai chi in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/WeChat account: nbfb0574]

Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province recently unveiled a five-year plan to improve the fitness of local residents.

According to the plan, the city aims to increase the proportion of people who regularly exercise to above 45 percent and have more than 95 percent of its population meet the national physical fitness standards by 2025.

In addition, efforts will be made to make exercise facilities and venues more accessible to local residents, with the ultimate goal being having a gym located within a 10-minute walk from every person residing in both its urban and rural areas. 

The scale of the sport industry in Ningbo is targeted to top 100 billion yuan while the number of sports organizations registered in the city should surpass 3,000 by 2025, according to the document.

Specifically, the city is planning to build 50 sports parks, 50 football fields, 110 multifunctional sports fields and 360 government-funded gyms by 2025 so as to lift the per capita area of sports fields to above 3.2 square meters.

In addition, the local government will ensure students have two hours of physical activity each day in and outside of school, and help them master more than two sports, according to the plan.

All public sports venues and school sports facilities in Ningbo will be open to the public for free or at highly affordable rates.

In recent years, an average of more than 4,000 sports events have been held in the city annually, with attendance figures totaling over 1 million people, official statistics from the Ningbo municipal bureau of sports show.