SHANGHAI — China's national pension fund aims to nearly triple the proportion of its overseas portfolio, state media reported Thursday, as it looks to capitalise on cheaper investments following the global slump.
The National Social Security Fund had previously set a maximum limit of seven percent of its portfolio on overseas investments, the China Securities Journal reported, but it as now looking to hike this to 20 percent.
The fund has posted a real investment return of 7.36 percent a year since it was set up in 2000, the state-run newspaper reported, citing its chairman Dai Xianglong.
He gave no specific details about the fund's planned future investments.
Dai last week acknowledged the global financial crisis had altered the investment landscape and the change in investment allocation provided a chance to take advantage of foreign asset prices hit by the downturn.
"Therefore, the national social security fund will further improve its management and raise its capacity to preserve and increase value (of assets)," he said in the text of a speech posted on the fund's website last week.
China's pension fund had total assets of 700 billion yuan (102.5 billion dollars) at the end of October, it said previously.
Forty-six percent of its assets were invested in fixed-income products, 32 percent in shares while investments in unlisted companies and cash accounted for 22 percent, it said in a statement in early December.
