The news is not all black for local provident funds caught up in the recent crisis in the Hong Kong stock market.
Richard Long, director of investments at Principal Insurance, said although the price fall may have substantially reduced the value of existing holdings, it had created opportunities to buy at lower prices.
He did not believe the downturn was a reason to opt out of Asian markets altogether.
'People should expect to have short-term volatility in their investments, probably not as much as we have had recently, but in the long term we still think we need to be in Asian markets to get a good return on pension money,' he said.
There were lessons to be learned from the recent volatility in Asian markets, Mr Long said.
'There are some weaknesses in the markets that people were not really as aware of as they might have been but, if you look 10 to 20 years from now, the current problems will hardly register.
'I don't see a long-term doomsday scenario and in the lifetime of pension funds it offers some opportunities to pick up investments at relatively good value.' For this reason, he did not expect pension fund managers to abandon Asian markets.
