The China Insurance Regulatory Commission said Tuesday that China's insurance industry earned more than 1.7 trillion yuan, or over 280 billion U.S. dollars last year. That's a jump of about 11 percent from a year ago. The increase means that the industry has regained steam after a couple of years of slow growth.
Full-year revenues for China's insurance industry hit double-digit growth in 2013 and investment returns on insurance capital also saw their best performance in four years.
The CIRC says the industry's Return On Investment reached about 366 billion yuan, or 60 billion U.S. dollars last year.
The rate of investment return was 1.65 percent higher than in 2012. Last year's results were the best reading in four years as well.
Insurance firms will have more choices this year on where to invest their funds.
"One of our reforms this year is to further expand the capital operation measures. Insurance firms could adjust their investment policies according to market situations. It can reflect their own decision-making abilities," said Zhou Yanli, Vice Chairman of CIRC.
In fact, the CIRC ruled earlier this month that insurance funds could be invested in shares of Growth Enterprise Market. That was the first sign of an easing environment for insurance firms to run their money.
At the same time, Xiang Junbo, Chairman of the CIRC, released several other reforms this year. Those reforms include building up the catastrophe insurance system and extending reforms on the marketization of insurance rates.
Source: CCTV
