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ING continues to expand in the mainland

The world's largest life insurance group will open offices in three more mainland cities shortly as part of its expansion plan in China.

ING Group Asia-Pacific executive committee chairman Alexander Rinnooy Kan said the company wanted branches in Beijing, Nanjing and Suzhou as soon as possible, pending regulatory approval.

The Dutch-based company is the only foreign insurance company with two joint ventures operating in China.

The insurer received its joint-venture licence for ING Capital Life in June 2000 and three weeks later got its second for Pacific Antai Life Insurance through acquiring the international business of Aetna. The two life joint ventures have 700 staff and 9,000 sales agents.

Shanghai-based Pacific Antai last month received approval to set up a branch in Guangzhou. Mr Rinnooy Kan said it would apply to open branches in Nanjing and Suzhou in the near future.

Dalian-based ING Capital Life would apply to operate in Beijing soon and would like to expand to Shenyang and Qingdao, he said.

Mr Rinnooy Kan said the company had no plan to combine the joint ventures.

'China is a huge market and the two joint ventures could operate in different mainland cities without any conflict,' the Amsterdam-based executive told the South China Morning Post during a visit to Hong Kong last week. 'We would like to see each joint venture open at least a branch every year.'

He said ING had no intention of following American International Group and HSBC by expanding business through buying shares in mainland insurers.

'The joint ventures will be the major vehicles for ING to expand in China. We plan to expand by organic growth and not by acquisition, although we would not rule out the possibility.'

Besides insurance, ING has an asset management joint venture in China, which has launched its first fund product and is planning to introduce the second soon. The company also owns a bank offering yuan lending and deposit services for foreign companies, and has an investment quota of US$100 million under the qualified foreign institutional investor scheme.

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