March 2021

China. Power or Profits: Beijing’s Pension Dilemma

When it comes to China’s economy, the sexy issue is the annual growth target for gross domestic product or carbon emissions or corporate debt defaults or the property market. But only one topic is really important for the longer-term survival of the Communist Party regime: pensions. And the party seems to know it. Read also India. NPS Scheme: PFRDA empowers National Pension System subscribers by offering this facility – Check benefits That’s why pension reform popped up, albeit in attenuated form,...

China Plans New State Pension Firm as Population Ages

China plans to create a new state-owned pension firm to tackle a massive funding gap as the world’s largest population struggles to finance retirement despite decades of economic growth. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission is mulling a national pension company with state-owned banks and insurers as shareholders, according to people familiar with the discussions. Details such as the shareholding structure and size of investment are still being hammered out, they said, declining to be identified as the plan...

Fraudsters prey on the fears of China’s aging population.

Shady retirement home and investment schemes have cheated China’s rapidly aging population out of hundreds of millions of dollars, spurring more than a thousand criminal cases in recent years. In a society that traditionally relied on family members to take care of elderly parents, fraudsters have been able to prey on fears that changing social norms and scarce resources will leave older people bereft, report Alexandra Stevenson and Cao Li for The New York Times. By 2025, more than 300 million...

Financial wellness can foster pension system in China

By Daisy Ho China faces mounting pension and retirement challenges, but it's not without silver linings. It's well known that China's huge and rapidly aging population will grapple with a shortage of pension coverage that looks set to worsen over the next few years. There is no quick fix for state pensions falling short of growing retirement needs, but policymakers see promoting private retirement saving schemes as a key means of filling the gap. Here, we see some encouraging signs, especially when...

China’s aging population is a bigger challenge than its ‘one-child’ policy, economists say

China’s decades-old one-child policy gained renewed attention in the last few weeks, after authorities gave mixed signals on whether they were closer to abolishing limits on how many children people can have. Authorities have rolled back the controversial one-child policy in recent years to allow people to have two children. But economists say other changes are needed for boosting growth as births fall and China’s population rapidly ages. “There are two ways to address this. One way is to relax the...

February 2021

China. Green finance gets newfound incentivization

China will make it easier for international investors to access the country's green finance market by promoting the harmonization of domestic and global green standards as part of its efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060, central bank officials said on Tuesday. Read also Asia needs pension reforms for sustainable growth The green finance industry in China needs to learn from the asset management experiences of foreign investors, such as multinational pension funds and insurance companies. Large capital injections are also...

China to Widen Fight Against Monopolies to the Giant Gig Economy

China pledged to deepen antitrust enforcement across emergent sectors including on-demand internet services, broadening a campaign to rein in the growing power of private firms. China “resolutely” opposes monopolies and unfair competition and will step up regulation in sectors such as platform businesses, according to a plan released by the general offices of the powerful Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council, the cabinet. Contained within a broad set of guidelines intended to enforce “high standards” in Chinese finance and markets, the...

January 2021

China:Pension system reform seen as imperative

The structural reform of China's pension system is imperative, and the country's aging population will be propelling an increase in demand for pension funds to be allocated to investments with sustainable returns and alternative solutions that provide long-term benefits, according to Ms Dong Mei, a partner and the head of Aged Care in KPMG China. In an article for China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily, she points to several overarching trends affecting the development of China's...

China’s plan to ease the pension pressure

China's pension system has been continuously developed since its launch in 1951, with a focus mainly on public pensions. Through seven decades of development, China has made impressive strides in retirement payments, with a public pension coverage of almost 960 million people in 2019. However, the size of the pension in China is still relatively small, mainly due to a lack of a private pensions system that encompasses enterprise annuities, occupational annuities, and pensions for individuals. As it faces...

China’s demographic time bomb quickly ticking down

China’s declining demographics are gloomier than previously estimated, a life and death challenge for the world’s second-largest economy policymakers have so far failed to address. Preliminary provincial findings of a nationwide census now underway indicate that population growth in 2019 plunged to a 60-year low, despite Beijing’s move in 2016 to abandon its notorious “one-child” policy. The 14.65 million newborns recorded across China last year were a third lower than the annual average throughout the 1990s and 2000s...