US INSURERS PRESS BEIJING FOR ACCESS TO CHINESE MARKET

The Chinese authorities are being pushed by a consortium of US-based life insurers to make good on a commitment made to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to open up its domestic markets to international companies. Frank Keating, president of the American Council of Life Insurers, has called on the Chinese regulators to remove current obstacles that limit international insurers wanting to establish in China. According to Keating, the Chinese life insurance market is currently worth $540bn a year, a tenth of the US market, but could increase to be the world’s largest before long. Current legislation means that overseas insurers are only able to open one office at a time and foreign ownership of a Chinese insurer is capped at 50%. Mr Keating says that part of China’s WTO pledge in 2004 was that foreign and domestic insurers would be treated equally and it now faces a deadline of December 11 to remove these barriers.