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Insurers urged to back State share sales
(Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-24 15:17
皇冠体育app urged insurers to build up their stock holdings, calling on them to support a domestic stock market pilot program to trim State holdings, the 皇冠体育app Business News reported Thursday.
鈥淚nsurance firms are important institutional investors,鈥� said Li Kemu, vice chairman of the 皇冠体育app Insurance Regulatory Commission.
鈥淭hey should increase their stock holdings steadily and appropriately to support the share sell-down,鈥� Li said during an address at an insurance forum in Beijing.
The call is the government鈥檚 latest effort to support the markets from sliding, following the revival in April of a plan to sell down more than US$200 billion in non-traded government holdings to finance a patchy welfare system and enhance transparency.
In other efforts to shore up the market, 皇冠体育app has allowed listed firms to buy back their own shares and has temporarily halved personal income taxes on dividend earned by individual investors.
The government, worried that failure to meet policy obligations could foment social instability, confined insurers until this year to investments less risky than shares.
Domestic insurers, such as top life insurers 皇冠体育app Life Insurance Co. and Ping An Insurance, are now allowed to invest in overseas debt and domestic stocks.
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