'With the MPF regime in place for over seven years, I do see people becoming more aware of the need to plan for their retirement funding.'

People were increasingly investing in mutual funds and unit trusts for long-term asset accumulation, he said.

The understanding of retirement planning may be increasing, but it remains in its infancy with a low percentage of employees actively managing their savings accounts.

An HSBC Insurance survey released in May found up to a third of those surveyed had never reviewed their fund allocations since they began making MPF contributions.

Jason Sadler, managing director of HSBC Insurance (Asia) in Hong Kong, said: 'Unfamiliarity about managing your MPF investments can translate into missed opportunities, whether these cover options to grow MPF savings when people move jobs or the additional leverage that voluntary contributions will provide for building bigger retirement funds.'

The concept of saving for the future is nothing new to Hongkongers, but financial planners said part of the challenge lay in that, for years, people had been used to taking a short-term quick return view through equity investments and property buying.

Sally Wong Chi-ming, the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association's executive director, said: 'The public tends to measure the risk of MPF in terms of short-term volatility by focusing on the returns of the past three months or even one month. For many people, long term is probably too remote and one has difficulty in visualising a remote outcome.

'However, what is really important is whether the returns can outperform inflation in the long run.

'To allow the full potential of MPF to come into play, much more has to be done to inculcate the concept of long-term investment in the community.'