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Insurer Aims at 30% Growth
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 per cent 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 per cent.
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 per cent from the previous year and 10 percentage points higher than the industry growth. 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 healthily 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. But as the industry is still in the fledgling stage, the companies are still weak in strength compared to their foreign counterparts. (China Daily)
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