Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd, the second largest life insurance company in China, declared that it would invest in such markets as overseas finance and capital construction, once being granted by China to expand overseas investment of insurance companies to global markets.
China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) disclosed before that within this year, all the insurance institutions could carry out overseas investment by purchasing foreign exchanges, and the channels of overseas investment would expand from Hong Kong to global markets such as New York and London, and the proportion of expected assets invested overseas of insurance institutions to total assets would be raised to 15% from presently 5%. CIRC estimated that such measure would be promulgated within one or two month.
Zhang Zixin, executive director and general manager of Ping An, expressed that the current investment channels for insurance corporations were very limited, which mainly engaging in investing China bond market. Although lower risk of public debt, the return was relatively much lower as well. Through globalized investment opportunities, it could balance holistic investment portfolio.
The total assets value of Ping An Insurance by the end of 2006 reached RMB 494.3b; in other words, if the central government would permit insurance companies to invest 15% of total assets in the global markets, Ping An Insurance could invest RMB74b.