by Martina Fuchs
GENEVA, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- China is set to become the world's largest insurance market, Swiss reinsurance company's chief economist said recently.
"We are confident about the outlook of China's market, and we remain to expect China to be the world's top insurance market by mid of the 2030s," Jerome Haegeli of the Zurich-headquartered Swiss Re Group told Xinhua in a written interview.
Noting that a strong cyclical recovery from the COVID-19 shock will support the outlook of the global insurance industry, Haegeli said his company's latest sigma study forecasts the industry will reach a new record in global premiums by mid-2022, exceeding 7 trillion U.S. dollars.
Global insurance premiums will expect an above-trend real growth of 3.3 percent in 2022 and 3.1 percent in 2023, he said.
The fundamentals for the Chinese insurance market remain solid thanks to the steady income growth, a growing middle-income class, along with an increasing risk awareness, said the chief economist of the company, which was founded in 1863.
Haegeli noted that the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission had issued multiple guidance and action plans to promote the development of the insurance industry to have a more balanced structure and diversified product offerings, while improving protection for the broader population.
The company's study forecasts that "global GDP growth will be strong in 2021 at 5.6 percent, slowing to 4.1 percent in 2022 and 3 percent in 2023, as global supply chain issues, labor shortages and high energy prices persist," he said.
"Inflation is the prevailing near-term macro risk, fuelled by the energy crisis and prolonged supply-side issues. The price pressure is expected to be most acute in Britain and the United States," he noted.
Haegeli stressed that deeper structural reforms will remain a priority to drive long-term growth and replenish macroeconomic resilience, "including the building of sustainable infrastructure, a broader rollout of the digital economy and the transition to low-carbon energy." Enditem
