Maggie Zhang
\n2006-04-26<\/p>\n
MERCER Human Resource Consulting, the world’s biggest insurance broker, launched a joint venture in China yesterday. <\/p>\n
The venture, Shanghai Mercer Insurance Brokers Co Ltd, offers health-care benefits and advisory services to organizations in China. Mercer refused to identify its JV partner, saying it is awaiting the Chinese firm’s approval to disclose the information. <\/p>\n
“We are ambitious and optimistic about the market and our business will grow rapidly,” said Edouard Merette, Asia-Pacific president of Mercer. “The potential is enormous as it’s still in the initial stages of the market in China.” <\/p>\n
China’s insurance premiums topped 493 billion yuan (US$62 billion) last year. Premiums collected from the country’ insurance brokers were at about 10 billion yuan, accounting for a mere 2 percent of the total. <\/p>\n
Considering the 2 percent figure, the insurance broker sector enjoys big growth potential, said Rosaline Chow Koo, regional business leader of Mercer Health & Benefits Asia. She also said China will be the fastest-growing market for the company. <\/p>\n
The venture has 10 employees to start. But Merette said it will grow into the “thousands” in a fairly short period. <\/p>\n
The US-based company holds a 24.9 percent stake of the venture, just under the 25 percent maximum a single foreign investor is allowed by regulators in the insurance sector. Its unidentified Chinese partner holds the remainder. <\/p>\n
The China Insurance Regulatory Commission granted the license for the venture late last year with registered capital of 10 million yuan. <\/p>\n
China is boosting its commercial insurance sector to partly absorb the nation’s US$1.8 trillion in household savings. Authorities want to increase combined insurance assets to 5 trillion yuan by 2010 from 1.6 trillion yuan at the end of March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maggie Zhang 2006-04-26 MERCER Human Resource Consulting, the world’s biggest insurance broker, launched a joint venture in China yesterday. The venture, Shanghai Mercer Insurance Brokers Co Ltd, offers health-care benefits and advisory services to organizations in China. Mercer refused to identify its\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsofchina","tag-null"],"yoast_head":"\n