政府新闻
上海国际再保险交易所报告业务起飞 2025-09-09
Shanghai International Reinsurance Exchange traded nearly 4.4 billion yuan ($620 million) of insurance premium in its first eight months of operations, Chang Ming, assistant to the exchange's general manager, said on Monday.
In a further break down, the value of outward insurance, under which the insurer transfers the insurance to another insurance company, approached 94.6 billion yuan ($13.27 billion). The value of inward reinsurance, meaning the insurance company accepts insurance business ceded by another insurer, came to 9.5 billion yuan ($1.33 billion).
Officially unveiled in the Lin-gang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone in October, the exchange has since seen 118 institutions register with the trading authority to date, out of which 90 are domestic and the rest from overseas. The exchange has helped to attract 26 domestic and international reinsurance institutions to Lin-gang, including operation centers for 21 reinsurance companies, one branch of a reinsurance company, and branches of four insurance brokerages.
According to Chang, such rapid development can be largely attributed to institutional innovation, the trading seats introduced at the exchange being one of them.
Chang added that overseas institutions are allowed to provide offshore reinsurance services to Chinese clients even if they have not got official operational approval from China's central regulators. But under such circumstances, these overseas reinsurance companies cannot set up fixed operation venues in China.
But the trading seats at the exchange can help these institutions reach their Chinese clients more conveniently, which can largely save the costs of conducting China-related businesses, he said.
So far, six overseas institutions from countries including Barbados, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United Kingdom have obtained trading seats at the exchange.
According to Chang, the exchange has also explored an overseas fleet insurance service mechanism with Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, PICC and Air Union Insurance Brokers, which would be aimed at facilitating the export of domestically produced commercial aircraft while securing Chinese companies' interests in overseas markets.
Feng Xiao, deputy general manager of the reinsurance department of PICC, said that Chinese companies' demand for insuring their overseas businesses has been rising amid the country's stable economic growth and the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Consequently, domestic insurers need to directly enter the international market and undertake the inward reinsurance business of Chinese companies in overseas markets as well as other international inward reinsurance. This is crucial for China to participate in global risk governance, he said.
Chang added that trading data at the exchange is transparent, true, traceable and controllable. Based on these merits, the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, has provided facilitation for cross-border capital registered at the exchange and used for reinsurance trading via free trade accounts.
The PBOC is now studying ways to introduce a new measure to facilitate overseas investment using overseas inward reinsurance income, he said.
France's Axa Global Reinsurance officially opened its reinsurance operation center in Lin-gang in January.
According to Xue Fei, general manager of Axa International Reinsurance (Shanghai) Co, the collective financial infrastructure and policies introduced at the exchange, as well as the gathering of registration, clearance and information disclosure, can significantly improve trading efficiency and lower costs. This is conducive to improving companies' operational efficiency and competitiveness, he said.
The fact that more and more industry players are gathering in Lin-gang helps Axa talk to its peers more conveniently over the most up-to-date trends regarding health insurance, travel insurance and even businesses related to new energy vehicles, he said.
In February and May, the Lin-gang administrative committee released the negative lists and practice guidance for the cross-border data flow in the reinsurance industry.
Source: China Daily
