China's largest insurance company has pledged to boost its assets
and service provision to meet world-class standards within five
years.
The Ping An Insurance
Company has just worked out an aggressive five-year plan which
aims to put it on the list of Fortune 500 companies, company
Board Chairman Ma Mingzhe said at the company's national annual
conference at the beginning of the week.
To accomplish this,
the company must develop at an annual 30 to 40 percent growth
rate from now on, maintaining the quality of its assets at
the same time, said Ma.
The China Industry
Regulatory Commission, the industry watchdog, has forecast
the annual industry growth over the next five years will be
12 percent.
Ma's ambition is
based partly on Ping An's performance last year. In 2000,
the company harvested 27.23 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion)
in premium income, up 24.4 percent from the previous year
and 10 percentage points higher than the industry growth rate.
Profit is estimated
to be 1 billion yuan (US$120 million) for the year.
Meanwhile, the
insurance company, which incorporates both life and non-life
business and also dabbles in securities and asset management
fields, significantly increased its management capability
last year, said Ma.
"With our
present growth momentum, service and management ability we
are well equipped to surpass the insurance companies on the
end of the Fortune 500 list," said Ma.
To realize its
goal, Ping An has laid out a series of detailed measures.
They include using
domestic and international capital markets to amplify Ping
An's capital assets, developing advanced new products to improve
the range.
Next year, Ping
An will give equal attention to life insurance, non-life insurance,
investment and securities, said Ma.
So far, Ping An
has a total of 53 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion) of high quality
assets that can be invested in bank deposits, bonds and securities
investment funds.
Ma said China's
developing economy and deepening social reform in the next
few years will give a strong boost to Ping An's plans.
China had 32 insurance
companies by the end of last year, including State-owned,
shareholding and foreign funded ones
(China Daily 01/20/2001)
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