Wednesday 25 December 2013

Insurers favor real estate as an investment

itoring is an important factor that limits non-traditional investment by investment institutions.

Meanwhile, 75 percent of respondents said that risk monitoring is the biggest difficulty associated with non-traditional investment.

"Insurance institutional investors are quite interested in asset-backed securities, indicating they are drawn to financial innovation. They intend to try more types of investments rather than being limiting to a particular sector," Zhou said.

In terms of overseas investments, the survey showed that 75 percent of respondents prefer the US as an investment market, 25 percentage points higher than the second-most popular market, Hong Kong (50 percent), followed by Europe (40.63 percent).

But the US, although the most frequently mentioned target market, also recently issued the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which, while designed to curb offshore tax avoidance by its citizens, places higher compliance requirements on overseas investors.

"Those domestic insurance companies dealing in overseas investments, particularly in the US, should pay detailed attention to the act before implementation, in order to avoid paying unnecessary tax," said Zhou.

It was noteworthy that none of the respondents to the PwC survey selected such emerging markets as India, Russia or other BRICS as his/her target market for overseas investment.




Source: China Daily

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