US life insurers see tremendous market potential in China's combination of strong savings, low penetration rates for insurance products, and an underdeveloped pension industry.

Keating, president and CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) and a former governor of Oklahoma said that China, like the US, has a large population, but a much higher savings rate, at 50 pct of income.

Keating added he also sees China's potential in terms of the 50 bln usd in 2005 premium income realized by US insurers in Japan, a similar high-savings country with a much more developed industry. In China, US life insurers had premiums of 1.5 bln in the same period.

"Around 75 of China's working population have no retirement pensions, yet life expectancy since the country's founding (in 1949) has nearly doubled. The reason I am here is because this is where the money is," he said.

Source:佚名