New department to serve as platform to find friends

The Communist Youth League (CYL) Provincial Committee of East China's Zhejiang Province will set up a new department in June to help single young people in the province find mates.

The department will serve as a platform for young people to make friends and find partners by establishing a database and organizing regular dating activities, zjol.com.cn, a news portal under the Zhejiang provincial government, reported on Friday.

Finding partners for dating and marriage has become a main concern for young people nowadays as their social circle is gradually narrowing due to an accelerated pace of life and pressures of work, Wang Huilin, deputy chief of the Zhejiang provincial , was quoted as saying by the zjol.com.cn.

The State Council, China's cabinet, in April released a 10-year plan, The Middle- and Long-term Youth Development Plan (2016-2025), to promote education, employment and healthcare for the nation's youth, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The plan clarifies that organizations like the youth league committees and women's unions should play a role in helping young people find friends and mates.

Young people refer to those aged 14 to 35 years, according to the plan.

He Junke, a senior official with the CYL Central Committee, said on May 17 that it is a big concern for young people above the average marriage age to remain single, and that the CYL Zhejiang committee will help these people find right partners.

According to a report released by the All China Women's Federation in 2015, the average marriage age of Chinese people is 26, with over three quarters of Chinese men getting married between 25 and 34 while more than 90 percent of Chinese women tying the knot before 30.

The legal marriage age for males are 22 and 20 for females in China.

The CYL Zhejiang committee has also set up a Wechat account recently, according to a staff member of the committee.

Although still in trial, the account has attracted nearly 1,000 registered users and organized nine activities, the staff said, adding that they will promote the account to all 11 prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang and build 20 activity bases.

The platform is free and has a strict system for checking the credentials of the applicants, so it is more reliable than dating platforms that are run by private companies, the staff noted.

Chinese parents might be happy to see Zhejiang's move, especially those in Shanghai who have found their own ways to help children find mates by creating matchmaking areas in local parks due to worries about marriage.