HONGKONG fund managers and their parent companies are set to benefit from Japan's promise to give greater foreign access to its lucrative pension fund market, although they say it will be slow going.
Japan offered last week to open its pension fund market wider to foreign companies, a move long sought by the United States.
US Treasury officials said the offer should enable foreign investment advisory firms to boost their potential share of the total 90 trillion yen (about HK$6.57 trillion) market from around three per cent to more than 10 per cent.
But Hongkong investment chiefs reckoned 10 per cent was possibly too optimistic, with the Japanese market still fraught with restrictions and hefty operational costs.
Jardine Fleming Holdings director Chris Russell said: ''There is no question it is good news, and we are quite lucky because we were one of the first to get a licence, around four years ago, and are now well established in that market.'' But he outlined key problems overhanging the market: stipulations that 50 per cent should be held in cash and bonds; tax qualifications applying only to funds in operation for eight years; and the distinction between new and old money.
Old money could only be managed by trust banks and life companies, he said, and while new money was flooding into the market it left a solid plank that was inaccessible to the investment advisers.
