SHANGHAI: Taiping Life Insurance, in which Benelux banking and insurance group Fortis owns 24.9 per cent, has won approval to set up China's first management firm for corporate pensions, it said yesterday.

Taiping secured a nod from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission to prepare for the establishment of a branch that would run companies' retirement funds, with 200 million yuan (US$24.2 million) in paid-in capital, the insurer said in a statement obtained by Reuters.

It now awaits final investment approval.

"Regulators have granted the approval to Taiping..., indicating a key step forward for the insurance industry to actively participate in China's corporate pension funds market," Taiping said in the statement.

China will give a similar go-ahead soon to another local insurer, Ping An Insurance Co, the country's official Shanghai Securities News cited authorities as saying, offering it the same access to a huge but untapped business.

Ping An, which controlled 17.3 per cent of China's insurance market in 2003, plans to list shares in Hong Kong soon to raise more than US$2 billion, sources familiar with the deal say.

Global giant American International Group would also partner with China's largest listed lender Merchants Bank in the business, the Securities News said, quoting authorities.

Chinese and foreign insurers are vying to tap 35 billion yuan (US$4.23 billion) in corporate pension funds as of the end of 2003.

Regulators have said corporate pension funds could top 1 trillion yuan (US$121 billion) by 2010 as Beijing dismantles a cradle-to-grave welfare system, encouraging firms to set up schemes to complement the existing state-run framework.

Companies in developed markets often outsource management of their pensions schemes to financial institutions - but this is still a new-fangled concept in China.

"Insurers could become good participants and major rivals in the management of corporate pension funds," the newspaper said.

Beijing has published rules allowing corporate pension funds to be invested in domestic bonds, bank deposits and securities.

But regulators are still trying to draft regulations to oversee actual pension fund managers.

Existing rules stipulate that pension-fund custodians, including commercial banks and other institutions, must maintain at least 5 billion yuan in assets.

(HK Edition 06/08/2004 page17)