Half of Chinese insurance firms boast overseas investors

Prompted by a good insurance business growth prospects in China, more and more overseas investors have been making investment in this regard in the country.

Twenty-seven of the 46 insurance companies included by the Fortune's list of the world's top 500 companies have opened business entities in China, according to Professor Xu Wenhu, head of the Insurance Department of the Shanghai-based Fudan University.

And by late 2005, there had been 82 insurance companies across China, of which, 40 had been financed by overseas investors.

Insurance business revenue has been growing at an annual rate of 25 percent in the past five years, said Xu.

Gross insurance assets in China exceeded 1.5 trillion yuan (about 187.5 billion U.S. dollars) last year, and premium revenue totaled 492.7 billion yuan (about 61.59 billion U.S. dollars) in the same year.

Source: Xinhua