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Canadian Insurance Giant Seeks Opportunity in China
Sun Life Financial of Canada (International) Limited, a Hong Kong-based Canadian insurance company, Thursday announced that it plans to start its business operations in China's mainland this year.
"We have already had three offices in Beijing and Chongqing, and we are expecting to set our business operations going in the country within the year," Douglas Henck, executive vice-president of the company's Asian operations, told the reporter Thursday after a press conference.
According to Henck, the company's first batch of investment in China is estimated at over one million U.S. dollars. "We are still cautious since we believe the insurance market in China's mainland is not so well-developed as those in other countries and regions in Asia," Henck said.
Henck said that China is the world's largest insurance market with its big population. The company was intended to enter China as early as in 1992, Henck said.
The company also announced plans to significantly expand its Hong Kong presence and as a result corporate investment and resources are being directed by its parent company, Sun Life Financial Services of Canada, into the operation, said Janet De Silva, the newly-appointed chairman of the company.
"We have plans to meet the growing interest of many of our Hong Kong customers for products that offer longer term professionally managed investment choices by introducing a new unit-linked line of business late this year," Silva said.
For the period ending December, 2000, the company's premium revenue grew 9.5 percent to 543 million HK dollars ( 69.6 million U.S. dollars). The company is a Fortune Global 500 financial services organization offering insurance and wealth accumulation products.
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