| China, home to nearly half of the population aged 60 and over in Asia, will not be spared the challenges engendered by this greying phenomenon. China's elderly population, which currently stands at 150 million, is expected to reach almost 400 million by 2040. In the wake of a series of historical transitions: from a centralised economy to a market economy; from an agricultural to an industrial society; and from the predominance of rural traditions to urban models, much of China's burden was created by the system inherited from the pre-transition era. This new edition of Pension Funds in China provides a comprehensive and critical look at China's pension reform journey from 1949 to 2004. It documents the evolution of the country's old age income security system to its present day structure, assesses past reform processes, as well as those that are still in progress, underscores inherent risks and analyses reform options from both sides of the pension equation. This publication also provides a valuable context for projecting future development, for despite a wide range of reforms to China's old age insurance programme since the 1990s, an unfinished agenda with daunting implementation challenges still remains. Taken from the foreword by, Robert Holzmann, Senior Director, Social Protection, The World Bank. "When we wrote the previous edition, guidelines for the unified pension system had just been published but not implemented. There was very little information on the topic besides official documents and a handful of academic papers. In fact, some people may have wondered why we took such an interest in such a remote topic as Chinese pension funds, a market economy concept, when China's economy was still rapt in the transition from planned to market and the fund management industry was still in its founding stage. In researching for that edition, the challenge was to find relevant information to give a clear picture of the state of China's pension system at that time. Since then, there have been many changes in the pension system and in the financial markets. There are now a great number of parties with an interest in China's pension developments from either an academic, social policy or commercial perspective. And so, there is now an abundance of primary and secondary sources of information on the topic from these various perspectives. In undertaking research for this current edition, the challenge was, therefore, to sort through all the facts and opinions, distinguish between these, and synthesise the information in a way that is relevant to our readers. The purpose of this book is to inform and educate an international audience regarding the state of the pension reforms in China and their significance. The intended audience includes: academics, actuaries, bankers, consultants, custodians, demographers, economists, fund managers, insurance executives, journalists, pensions experts, social scientists and trustee companies. We have tried to prepare this book on what we call the 'A, C, B' principle: accurate, complete, and 'be easy-to-read'. We hope you will find that we have kept to this principle." Stuart Leckie and Yasue Pai Sponsored by;
Fortis, Schroders, Standard Life Investments and Sun Life Financial. Table of Contents: Preface
Foreword
Introduction Chapter One: Demography of China
Chapter Two: PRC Economy
Chapter Three: Pension Developments Since 1949
Chapter Four: Implementation of the Unified Pension System - Document No. 26: Successes and Challenges
Chapter Five: Financing the Transition
Chapter Six: National Social Security Fund
Chapter Seven: Amendments to the Unified Pension System - Document No. 42- Liaoning Pilot Project
Chapter Eight: Enterprise Annuities
Chapter Nine: Capital Market Developments
Chapter Ten: Pension Providers - Insurance Companies
Chapter Eleven: Pension Providers - Fund Management Companies
Chapter Twelve: Rural Pensions
Chapter Thirteen: Future Developments for China's Pension System Conclusion Appendix A: State Council Document No. 26, July 1997
Appendix B: State Council Document No. 42: The Pilot Programme for Improving the Urban Social Security System in China, December 2000
Appendix C: Trial Measures on Enterprise Annuities
Appendix D: Trial Measures on the Management of Enterprise Annuity Funds
Appendix E: Financial Services Post-11 December 2001 Accession to the WTO
Appendix F: Potential Competitors in the Enterprise Annuity Market
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
References About the Authors: Mr. Stuart Leckie is a qualified actuary and Pensions expert with a particular emphasis on pension funds in China. Mr. Leckie has been based in Hong Kong since 1979. In 1979, he joined Watson Wyatt, the actuarial and benefits consulting firm, becoming Managing Director (1982-93) and Asia Pacific Chairman (1994-95). From 1995 to 1997, he was the Chairman of Fidelity Investments, Asia Pacific, and was responsible for US$15bn of assets in various Asian markets. Yasue Pai is a research director with Stirling Finance Limited focusing on pension reform and pension asset management developments in the Greater China region. Prior to Stirling Finance, Yasue worked in emerging markets equity research with NatWest Securities in Hong Kong and Moody's Emerging Markets Service in New York. |
