Cathay, Taiwan's top financial holding firm by assets, expects its insurance joint venture in mainland China to generate more premiums next year as it doubles its number of offices in the lucrative market.

The joint venture with China Eastern Airlines generated premiums of 300 million Yuan ($38 million) from January to September, making the company China's 13th-largest life insurer, Cathay said at an investor conference.

"We've been slow since we opened our first office there last year. Now with our offices in mainland China doubling in 2007, we will move forward faster," said C.K. Lee, a Cathay executive vice president.

The venture now operates in Shanghai and other cities in Jiangsu Province. The company plans to open more in Zhejiang province next year, Lee said, in an effort to tap the huge market, where personal savings have reached roughly $2 trillion.

Cathay is the only Taiwan company that has an insurance venture in China. Three others, China Life Insurance, Shin Kong Life and Taiwan Life Insurance, are in the process of forming their own ventures.

Faced with a limited domestic market and low interest rates at home, many Taiwan insurers are trying to tap the huge mainland market.

The insurance sector in China, the world's fourth-largest economy, is expanding as Beijing dismantles a cradle-to-grave welfare system.

Life insurance premiums in China rose 14.2 percent to 364.62 billion Yuan ($45.5 billion) in 2005, according to recent official data. But fewer than 4 percent of China's 1.3 billion people have insurance coverage.

Source:佚名