China will invest more of its insurance funds in the securities market, with the purpose of stabilizing the capital market and safeguarding the confidence in the market.

The remark was made by Wu Xiaoping, vice chairman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), while addressing the fourth international forum on investment funds in China held Friday in Shenzhen City, south China's Guangdong Province.

Wu said the insurance organizations had become the most important institutional investors in the securities market and the size of the investment by way of securities investment funds into bourses had been increasing rapidly.

By late October, the outstanding sum of investment made by the insurance sector via securities investment funds totaled 105.99 billion yuan (about US$13.07 billion), showing an increase of 57.44 percent on the statistics for the beginning of the year.

The insurance sector has scored noticeable increases in investing in mutual funds and share-oriented funds, contributing 22.79 percent to the gross fund on the mutual fund market, said the official, who added relevant insurance organizations had also taken steps to control investment risks.

The gross assets of the country's insurance sector had totaled 1.47 trillion yuan by October, a rise of 24.44 percent from the statistics for the beginning of the year. And the outstanding sum of the operational insurance funds had amounted to 1.34 trillion yuan, a rise of 29.16 percent from the beginning of the year.

China is now home to 48 companies of mutual fund management, of which, 17 have financial backing from overseas investors. And there are 207 securities investment funds in the country, with the gross assets exceeding 476 billion yuan.

(Xinhua News Agency December 3, 2005)