Social Security Fund, the nation's largest pension fund, will
have more than 100 billion yuan to invest in 2007, according to
Xiang Huaicheng, chairman of the National Council for Social
Security Fund (SSF), the China Economic Weekly reported.
"A good part of bank deposits will reach maturity, and together
with new funds coming in, the SSF in 2007 is expected to have over
100 billion yuan to invest," Xiang said in an interview with the
magazine.
The SSF will balance its investment portfolio among mainland's A
shares, Hong Kong's H shares and overseas stocks, he said.
"For A shares, the SSF prefers buying those with higher return
and lower risk, and we are actively engaged in applying for new
shares in the initial public offering process," Xiang said.
The fund had about US$1.6 billion invested abroad by the first
quarter of this year.
Xiang said the SSF will strengthen its portfolio management for
overseas stock investment and risk management on foreign currency
assets.
The SSF managed 149.9 billion yuan at the end of the 2006.
The pension fund had a total of 19.5 billion yuan in investment
income last year, representing a 9.3 percent yield, as the
country's booming Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges contributed
returns of more than 50 percent.
(China Daily May 9, 2007)