The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has launched a set of new rules to regulate the industry sector and encouraged insurers to develop more long-term medical insurance packages.
Insurers are now allowed to develop and sell long-term insurance schemes that can vary charges under some well-defined conditions, the CBIRC said in a statement on its website.
These long-term insurance contracts should state clearly the conditions that will trigger a change in their charges, including a significant rise in claims, inflation and drastic changes in China’s insurance policies, it said.
These long-term products can only raise their charges from the fourth year of their contract periods and then change annually after that. The CBRIC said the new policies were aimed at meeting people’s rising demands for different medical insurance schemes.
Last year, the total sales of China’s medical insurance products increased by 32% to 244.2 billion yuan (US$34.44 billion) from 2018, the China News Service reported. However, most of these products only had a contract period of one year and could not effectively meet consumers’ needs.
Improving economy
The Chinese economy is getting back on the right track as most companies have resumed their operations and production, said some mainland analysts. Macro-economic indicators including industrial added value, investment and consumption figures are expected to have improved significantly in March, they said.
It is expected that China’s economic growth will return to a reasonable range soon due to the country’s counter-cyclical policies, said Zhu Jianfang, chief economist of CITIC Securities. The economic growth rate in the third and fourth quarters could be higher than 6%, depending on the strength of China’s macro policies and whether the global epidemic situation can be effectively contained in the second quarter, Zhu said.
Mao Shengyong, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said the supportive measures recently launched by the central government may not show an immediate result in the short term, but will help ensure stable economic growth in the second half of this year.
Beijing recently urged all government departments to help boost domestic consumption, while many shopping malls have started to deliver shopping coupons to consumers. Consumption will pick up soon, analysts said.
Retail banking
Retail banking businesses have accounted for more than half the revenue and profits of major Chinese banks, the China Securities Journal reported.
In 2019, China Merchants Bank’s retail banking business recorded a pre-tax profit of 66.42 billion yuan, up 14% from 2018, accounting for 56.7% of the bank’s total pre-tax profit. The segment’s operating income rose 15% to 144.72 billion yuan, 53.66% of the bank’s total operating income.
Net profit of the Ping An Bank’s retail banking business surged 13.8% to 19.49 billion yuan last year from 2018, representing 69.1% of the bank’s total net profit. The segment’s revenue grew 29.2% to 79.97 billion yuan, accounting for 58% of the bank’s total revenue.
Sanctions on Huawei
The United States government is planning to impose new sanctions on Huawei Technologies, according to some media reports. Foreign companies using US chip manufacturing equipment must seek approvals from the US before they can supply chips to Huawei.
China will not tolerate the US government’s “bullying” against Huawei, said Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry.
Company news
As of April 1, many large securities firms have released their 2019 annual reports. according to Wind.com.cn, a data research firm.
CITIC Securities was the No 1 brokerage in China in terms of revenue in 2019. It recorded an operating income of 43.14 billion yuan, followed by Haitong securities with 34.429 billion yuan. Guotai Junan, Huatai Securities, Shenwan Hongyuan and Guangfa Securities had operating incomes above 20 billion yuan.
Vanke founding shareholders’ equity management center and Tsinghua University Education Foundation signed a donation agreement on Thursday. According to the agreement, the center, on behalf of all Vanke employees, donated the entirety of its asset – 200 million Vanke shares – to Tsinghua University Education Foundation.
The shares are worth about 5.3 billion yuan at the current market price. They will be used to set up the Tsinghua University Vanke Public Health Discipline Development Special Fund.
Margaret Chan, former Director-General of the World Health Organization, will be the first Dean of the school. Wang Shi, founder and Honorary Chairman of Vanke, will be the school’s Honorary Director.
The story was written by Xu Jiangshan and Huang Wanyi and first published at ATimesCN.com.