(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-07 15:10

TIANJIN -- China Post Group, the business entity in charge of mail, delivery services and postal saving banks, has been approved by the country's insurance regulator to set up a life insurance company.

Feng Xinsheng, executive deputy general manager of the group, said here on Saturday the company to-be, named as China Post Life Insurance Company Limited, will be launched within a year.

The insurance company would be registered in Beijing with a register capital of 500 million yuan ($72.46 million), Feng said.

He said the new company would mainly target farmers, low-income urban residents and migrant workers in cities.

Experiences of the group as agents of insurance sales would surely help in building such an insurance company, he added.

China Post Group was established in December 2006 to separate the regulatory functions of the former State Post Bureau (SPB) from its business activities.

SPB was traditionally both the supervisor and a player in the market.

The CPG, after the separation, owns the China Postal Air Freight Corporation and the China Postal Savings Bank and controls EMS services merged with the China Postal Logistics Corporation.

Feng said deposits at the China Postal Savings Bank, inaugurated in March 2007, had reached 1.8 trillion yuan by the end of May. The bank is more recognized as a community bank or rural bank with extensive outlets across the nation, especially in the countryside.