China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd. (601601) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to the 2021 CPIC Group results announcement. I'm Su Shaojun, Board Secretary of CPIC Group. It's my great pleasure to welcome you all to this event. We'll share with you our 2021 performance and also listen to your suggestions as to CPIC's development. We are in the middle of the COVID situation in Shanghai. And you can see we are wearing masks. So given this special situation, we are conducting this event online. And we are still using -- we are still conducting it in the afternoon and in Chinese and provide simultaneous English interpretation. We paid a lot of attention to protection of the interest of the small- and medium-sized investors, and we have also announced in advance and also used various methods to interact with our small- and medium-sized investors. We have also announced in advance the time and the method to participate in this event, and we have solicited questions from small- and medium-sized investors. You can watch this event via video link and also raise questions on the video platform. We will give you timely responses. And also, you can watch the playback of this event via the official links. Next, I will introduce to you our senior management. They are Mr. Kong Qingwei, CPIC Group Chairman; Mr. Fu Fan, CPIC Group President; Mr. Gu Yue, CPIC P&C Chairman; Mr. Zhang Yuanhan, CPIC Group CFO and Chief Actuary; CPIC Life General Manager, Mr. Cai Qiang; and also Ms. Liu Xiaodan; Mr. Chen Jizhong; Lam Tyng Yih; and [ Mr. Hu Xiaobo ], Independent Director of the company and Mr. Jiang Xuping will also attend this event. First of all, Mr. Fu Fan will give you a presentation on the company's performance last year. I'll give you the floor, Mr. Fu.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Fu Fan, President of CPIC Group. Welcome to CPIC results announcement. It's my great pleasure to meet you online. The past year was a milestone in many ways for CPIC. International politics and the economic landscape became increasingly complicated and challenging, and the world has seen profound changes intertwined with once-in-a-century pandemic. China has embarked on a new journey of development but maintained socioeconomic growth and stability, but the insurance industry entered a critical stage of transformation and facing an uphill struggle in reshaping the value chain. Given this, we persisted in high-quality development and pressed ahead with reform, stabilized business fundamentals while deploying towards emerging high-potential areas to achieve both stability and progress in our operation. In terms of our business metrics, our group operating income amounted to CNY 440 billion (sic) [ CNY 440.6 billion ], a growth of 4.4%. Our group net profit attributable to the company reached CNY 26.8 billion, up 9.2%, and our EV reached CNY 498.3 billion, a growth of 8.5% from the end of 2020, and our total number of customers climbed to 168 million, up 20 million from the end of the previous year, and the group AUM reached CNY 2.6 trillion, up 6.8% year-on-year. And our comprehensive margin ratio under C-ROSS stood at 266%. While maintaining a steady growth, we continue to focus on key areas and made progress, big progress in health care and retirement business. We joined hands with premium health care providers and launched our first health service brand, CPIC Family Doctor, with 400 medical professionals and our service health insurance subsidiary finished the shareholding restructuring, and is now exploring new modes of specialized operation. We also set up a health care equity investment fund, to focus on testing medical appliances, telemedicine and other medical services. We also achieved milestones in retirement communities with 10 projects under CPIC Home up and running in 9 cities across China with a total of 12,000 beds. We continue to enhance customer experience to further improve capability on the CPIC Service. We have established this kind of a full level, this hierarchy for service officers, spanning from group headquarters down to the grass-root branches. We have 800 service officers to reach out to customers. And we have also supported the China International Import Expo for 4 years on end, given them a total SA of CNY 2.6 trillion. And we build a community for strategic clients with 591 clients benefiting from intragroup integrated services. By the end of 2021, upselling covered 8.7% of the existing customers, up by 2.7 percentage points. The number of customers with total sum assured of over CNY 1 million and above on third -- on TPL reached 21.9 million, up 28.2%. Group average number of insurance policies per customer reached 2.28, up by 7% from the end of 2020. The number of individuals with 2 insurance policies and above stood at 32 million, up 2.9%. And the number of customers holding insurances policies from multiple subsidiaries reached 10 million, up by 0.8%. On the other hand, we also promoted technological innovation. We achieved initial success in developing our data governance structures and building 4 middle platforms. We have, for example, completed relocation of the Luojing data center and put in place an operational model underpinned by 3 data centers in 2 locations so that we can actually provide responses to hundreds of millions of customers within seconds. CPIC Cloud entered large-scale production to offer upgraded cloud computing to digital applications. And based on technological applications, CPIC P/C can carry out Dark Factory for operation, and CPIC Life achieved a cloud-based distribution and long-distance double recording. And the CPIC AMC explored smart investment research. Going forward, we were committed to a market-oriented professional capability building. We translate the corporate social responsibility into sustained engine of growth to enter in a new chapter of growth. We incorporated ESG into business management, formulated ESG top-level design and set up a governance structure. The Board service as the top decision-making body, and under it, we also have investment decision-making and the ESG Committee. And at the end of 2021, we signed into UFI principles for sustainable insurance, and also the UN supported principles of responsible investment. We continue to carry out actions in environment, society and governance. In environment, we initiated the second phase of Sanjiangyuan Ecological Park covering 100 hectares. And also, we underwrote wildlife liability insurance in Yunnan, our CPIC P/C Yunnan branch became the only insurance partner of the 15th COP of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Also, we conducted an all-round upgrading of Anti-Poverty Insurance, which have been rolled out to over 1,000 counties, benefiting nearly 400,000 vulnerable people. And we established the CPIC Blue, the first of its kind in insurance industry and launched a 3-year program to care for elderly people with dementia. In terms of governance, we became more diverse, international and professional. We have 87% of the non-executive directors and 27% women directors. Also, we improved our smart transitioning of financial management and risk control and optimized internal control systems and formulated implementation measures in response to new regulation. In terms of the financials, our EV maintained steady growth. And by the end of 2021, it amounted to CNY 498 billion, up by 8.5% year-on-year. In terms of composition, in-force business amounted to CNY 211 billion, up by 4.5% year-on-year. And the group adjusted net worth reached CNY 287 billion, up by 11.6%. In terms of the movement, positive contribution mainly came from expected return on EV and NBV. In the past 2 years, with increase in EV and the slowdown of NBV growth, our NBV's contribution to EV has diminished. At the same time, the EV movement was also impacted by profit distribution, operating experience variance and the changes to the methods and assumptions and models. In terms of OPAT, if we strip out short-term investment movement, changes to evaluation assumptions and the impact of material one-off factors on the basis of net profit, we reported CNY 35.3 billion in OPAT attributable to the parent, up by 13.5%. Of this, that from Life reached CNY 28.2 billion, up by 9.2%. Faced with the resurgence of COVID-19 around the world and the complicated environment to perform adjustment of the Chinese insurance industry, NBV growth has come under pressure. We met the challenge head-on, adhered to high-quality development and maintained a stable growth of the business and demonstrated resilience. Our NBV fell by 24.8% to CNY 13.4 billion. Of this, annualized new premiums, for the purpose of NBV calculation, amounted to CNY 57.1 billion, up by 24.4%. Because of the challenging market environment and shift of business mix, our NBV margin decreased by 15.4 basis points to 23.5%. We implemented the Changhang action program in an all-round way to seek a more diversified channel mix with the agency force at the core. CPIC Life reported CNY 211 billion in GWPs, down slightly. By channels, the agency channel launched a restructuring to build a career-based professional and digital agency force, moving from short-termism toward long-term development with regular-pay new business amounting to CNY 24 billion in 2021, up by 11.6%. Bancassurance channel focused on banking outlets, products and personnel and boosted the strategic collaboration with key partners and deployed resources in key areas. Their new business premium reached CNY 6.6 billion, up by 331%. Group channel also saw sustained development of government-sponsored business and enhanced capability. GWP from group channel reached CNY 13.01 billion, up by 19%. We also served as the lead underwriter of the Huhuibao in Shanghai, which covered 7 million people and set a record. Now for the agency channel, we are building an agency force with 3 directions and 5 mosts. That is to say, career-based development, professionalism, digitalization and also give agencies space for generous income; most powerful entrepreneur platform; most caring CPIC services; most professional career development system; and most comfortable work environment. Last year, we also designed a new Basic Law and professional sales supporting platform on the career agency force project. Now based on the new Basic Law, we are going to drive core manpower growth and productivity gains and enhanced business quality control, upgrade agency's force in an all-around way. In 2021, our CG or equivalent of MDRT, head count grew by 170% from 2020. Our monthly first-year premium per agent reached CNY 4,638 up by 42.3%. We are committed to build a brand new golden triangle system of products and services to focus on the current needs of customers, health care, wealth management and retirement. We also launched the [indiscernible] product and upgraded the whole-life CI product under the new CI definitions to cover most critical illnesses. And we also launched the Haoshi Chengshuang, first whole-life CI products. And also [ Xingchong Long] annuity product and the [ Xingjian Xusan ] endowment product. Now these new CI products acquired more than 500,000 individual customers since their debut with over CNY 90 billion in total SA. We also enhanced service supply under CPIC Home brand. For example, our retirement community in Chengdu and Dali went operational and our CPIC Blue Passports covered nearly 18 million customers cumulatively. In terms of P&C, we deepened the reform, intensified the business quality control and delivered steady growth in premium and stable combined ratio. In terms of GWP, last year, our performance was CNY 152.6 billion, increased by 3.3%. Of this auto business was CNY 91.1 billion, down 4%. Non-auto business grew by 16.9% to CNY 60.8 billion. The combined ratio was 99%, same as 2020. And of this, loss ratio was 69.6%, up 8.2 basis points, and the expense ratio, 29.4%, down by 8.2 pts. We adapt to challenges of the comprehensive reform of automobile insurance and major natural disasters, persisted in high-quality development and to enhance our risk screening and management to improve business quality. And our combined ratio was 98.7%, up by 0.8 pt. Of this, loss ratio was 71.1%, up by 10.6 pt. And the expense ratio fell by 9.8 pt to 27.6%. We deepened closed-loop management for customer segmentations and enhanced the direct access to customers and differentiated management. We built an integrated smart operation system for individual customers covering on-line and off-line and the connected front-end, back-end and middle platforms with sustained increase in the on-line ratio and focused on typical life scenarios of customers, for example, stay at home, traveling, going to doctor, et cetera. And we also achieved the improvement in non-auto business with a combined ratio of 99.5%, down by 2.4 pt. And for health insurance, we accelerated the innovation of personal lines and cemented the current platform for government-sponsored insurance -- expanded the coverage of government-sponsored health insurance. In 2021, we reported CNY 12.1 billion in GWPs, a growth of 37.3%. Liability insurance stepped up support for the modernization of China's governance and deepened its first-mover advantage to serve local economy. This business line delivered CNY 10.9 billion in GWPs in 2021, up by 24.6%. In terms of agricultural insurance, we continue to push for expansion of coverage, diversification of product and [ development of ] standards. We enhanced innovation in products and services. Last year, the business line delivered CNY 10.3 billion in GWP, up by 19.8%. In terms of asset management, our group AUM maintained steady growth. As of the end of 2021, our group AUM totaled CNY 2.61 trillion, up 6.8% year-on-year. Of this, group in-house investment assets reached CNY 1.81 trillion, up by 10%. And third-party AUM was CNY 789.4 billion, up by 0.2%. Last year, we achieved a solid investment performance. The comprehensive investment yield fell by 2 pts to 5.4% which is largely because of the decrease in net of fair value movement of AFS, assets booked as other comprehensive income. Our total investment income was CNY 93.1 billion, up by 10.9%. That's mainly thanks to increase in gains from securities trading and interest income on fixed income investments. And the total investment yield was 5.7%, down by 0.2 pt. Our net investment income was CNY 73.061 billion, up by 8.8%. That's mainly because of the increased interest income on fixed income investments but our net investment yield was 4.5%, down by 0.2 pt. We [ even ] guided by FAA and conducted PAA with flexibility to seize market opportunities and also to -- in terms where we persisted in down bell-shaped asset allocation strategy, we increased allocation into long-term T-bonds and government bonds to extend asset duration and control reinvestment risk. On the other hand, we moderately increased investment in equity assets, including private equity to increase long-term returns. In terms of investment portfolio by the end of the reporting period, the share of fixed income assets stood at 75.7%, down by 2.6 pts. And then of the equity investment was 21.2%, up by 2.4 pt. And of this, stocks and equity funds amounted to 11.1% of the total investment assets, up by 0.9 pt. We maintained prudence in credit risk exposure and enhanced risk credit control and took effective steps to mitigate risk. 99.1% of enterprise bonds and the financial bonds issued by non-government-sponsored banks had an issuer or debt rating of AA or A-1 or above. Of this, the share of AAA reached 93.4% of non-public financing instruments with an external credit rating, the share of AA+ and above reached 98.8%. And of this, share of AAA was 94.7%. Except for those exempt from debt issuer external credit rating, the rest all have a guarantee of credit collateral. Underlying projects of our non-public financing instruments spread across sectors such as infrastructure, real estate, communications, non-bank financial, our blended nominal yield was 5.1% and an average duration of 7.3 years. That was the numbers. Looking ahead, the next 30 years marks the start of a new stretch of journey for CPIC Group. Under the leadership of the Board, we will stay focused and work even harder and strive for substantial growth for Changhang action program to reshape core competitiveness of life business; and P/C insurance will enhance underwriting profitability; and for Asset Management, we will step up alignment and the coordination of liabilities. We will continue to foster ecosystem of health care and elderly care, provide customers with comprehensive solution of products and services and enhance regional differentiation and specialization. We will improve the technology governance structure encapsulating management, research and use, enhance professional capability building for core R&D of insurance frontier technologies, and nurture an ecosystem for competitive insurance technology applications. That ends my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fu. Now we have the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

Let's welcome the first question from Haitong Securities.

I am Sun Ting from Haitong Securities. I have 2 questions here. First one, about dividend payment. We understand that...

Could you speak louder please?

Is it better now?

Could you repeat your question please?

Can you hear me? There seems to be some kind of technical problem.

Okay. Could you repeat your question please?

Thank you for your presentation. I am Sun Ting from Haitong Securities. Two questions from me. Number one, about the dividend payment. Now we understand that the -- you mentioned that you're going to consider accounting profit and OPAT to ensure the stability of dividend payment. Now OPAT increased by 14%, but your dividend payout actually will be down by 20-something, 20% something. So what's the reason? And what is your future policy for dividend payout? And second about the Changhang action plan program. Now it has been released for over a year now. So could you tell me something about this program based on your performance in 2021? So what's your evaluation of the Changhang program? Is it effective? And what are your other measures?

Okay, I'll answer your first question. No, actually, given the C-ROSS Phase II, there will become more stringent rules for the recognition of capital and the risk will become even severe pressures. So actually, we see a lowering of solvency ratios, so to ensure that we can maintain a steady level of solvency ratio and also support our business growth in new areas, we have actually formulated the plans to cover the subsidiaries in terms of capital ratio. And we are also looking at, well, what kind of leeway we have in terms of C-ROSS Phase II, for example, apply for a transitional period or issue some kind of debt. So all these are uncertain at the moment. So we become -- we are prudent in determining the dividend level for 2022 so that we can ensure the high-quality growth for the company. Now we are actually preparing for the 3-year capital plan based on C-ROSS Phase II. But we would say that long-term return to the shareholders will remain unchanged. Dividend payout is a very important issue for all shareholders. So given these kind of changes from the regulators, we should look at the long term. We always pay a lot of attention to our return to the investors. We will try to maintain steadiness, but also consider the changes from external and internal conditions.

Let me just add a little bit on this. Now, our Chief Actuary told you about regulatory changes, especially under the launch of C-ROSS Phase II. So you see for the lead players in China, actually, most or all of their solvency ratios are influenced by this Phase II of C-ROSS. Of course, we are talking to the regulators about the C-ROSS Phase II. But anyway, there are some uncertainties. So for 2022, the dividend payout, we made some adjustment. And the second important factor is the -- our future strategy. Well, last year, we got our 14th 5-year plan approved. And as I mentioned briefly in my presentation, we are going to focus on the health-related business. We will invest a lot of resources. And also, we will make investments in big data and in terms of technology. And also going forward, we are going to look at areas in the Yangtze River Delta and the Greater Bay Area, et cetera, et cetera. So we are making strategic deployment. So we want to support the business growth for the current period. But not only that, we also need to prepare for future growth in a strategic way. So we need to have some leeway or room for capital utilization for the future. So if you look at the 30-year history of the CPIC Group, you would say that we always pay a lot of attention to the return to investors. The payout ratio -- dividend payout ratio, if we look at the peers, we remain at a high level. We're always a high level. And you -- if you look at our peers, apart from New China Life, if you look at the China Life, Ping 'An insurance, and the Taiping insurance and AIA, they have announced their dividend payment plan. For CPIC, our dividend payout ratio, 36%; and 3.7% dividend rate, now these numbers are still in the first echelon. So we will maintain this kind of a continuity and consistency. So while meeting regulatory requirements, we will fully consider the rights and interest of investors, and also business development needs. So as a member of the management, we would, of course, want to answer to the request from investors, but also look after the future growth of the company. So this is a challenge for us. We will pay a lot of attention to it. We need to think in the long term. And we also hope that the market can also look at the issue in a long-term perspective. Thank you.

Now your second question about the Changhang program. It was launched last year. We want to become -- give customer best experience. It's a 5-year plan. Now it was -- we prepared for 6 months and on October 1 last year, it was officially launched last year, October 1. So I would say we spent 3 months to prepare for it where we did a lot of communication, talked to the front line. And actually, January 1, this year, it was officially launched including the new Basic Law for agency. Now you asked me how do I see this program. Now first of all, actually, after a lot of the communications, I would say that now everyone in this company are on the same page. We are all on the same page in terms of how we think about this business. That is to say we must carry out the supply side reform. We cannot wait anymore. We should do it sooner rather than later. So we are all on the same page on this. We all agree. And after the official launch of the Changhang program, we are now building the 5 areas for the closed-loop operation, that is to say recruitment, training and cultivation and one-on-one business sales and also lease-based analysis and also professional management, professional activity management and also customer operation. And another area is the training, whole system of training, I would say in terms of the effect, I would say we are on the right direction. And the results are basically meeting our expectations. You can see from 2021 in terms of a per-agent premium per month, that grew by 42%. Well, this is a very important indicator in terms of business quality. So I would say in 2021, in terms of enhancing our business quality and enhancing our productivity, we laid a very good foundation in 2021. And I would say, well, we live up to our expectation for the first few months of 2022. Now it's not important to launch new measures all the time. We need to return to the fundamentals of Life business. We mentioned about career-based professional agency force. So that is to say we need to become very professional. For example, we should do it for 10,000 hours before we become professional, specialized. So that is what we are going to focus on. That is to say we focus on the 5 areas I just mentioned to become really professional and good at it. Thank you.

Well, thank you for the answers. Now let's welcome the second question. Now the second question comes from Credit Suisse.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to ask the questions, and I may just ask more about dividend payment because also, I received a lot of questions on dividend. Now given C-ROSS Phase II, we made some adjustment to dividend payout. But I understand C-ROSS Phase II actually has impact on everyone in the sector. So my question is that what's the impact of the C-ROSS Phase II on CPIC? Are they impacting you particularly significantly? Because actually, the adjustment was bigger than investors expected. And secondly, I would like to ask about the OPAT and the net profit. Do you -- what other factors do you consider? Because if we look at your peers, they say their dividend payout is linked to their OPAT. Now what about CPIC? What's your consideration here? The second question also about CPIC Life. We noticed that you released a CG -- a number of CG increased by 170%. So could you give me more details about new business value and also the recruitment, when will it bottom up? When we'll see -- when will we see some improvements?

Now, let me answer your first question, try to answer your first question. Now on the C-ROSS Phase II, CPIC in terms of product mix, we focus -- we actually have a high share of protection products. So the impact of C-ROSS II might be bigger for CPIC than for our peers. So our consideration is a comprehensive consideration.

Now if I may just add, as Mr. Zhang mentioned, the impact of the C-ROSS II, CPIC was invited to participate in the C-ROSS II preparation. So I would say this C-ROSS Phase II impact on the big players, big insurers in China are pretty much the same. Not big differences there, but CPIC is more prudent in our adjustment. And we look at the issue in a long-term way. Last year, dividend payout ratio was quite high for CPIC Group. Apart from the regular dividend payout, we also had a onetime dividend payout because of the 30th year anniversary of CPIC's founding. And also this time, we look more at the comprehensive factors and more towards the prudent side. Maybe we can ask for some kind of leeway from the regulators, for example, but we are not sure about that. There's some uncertainty. We think more about the long-term strategy of CPIC. For example, in health-related business, in technology, investment, et cetera, et cetera. But we believe all our strategic plans will benefit investors in the long run. So I would say you should look at the long term in terms of your returns. Thank you.

And for your second question about the Life business of CPIC in terms of the Q1 performance and also our expectations, I would say -- now this agency transformation, I would say is a very big change for the whole industry. Previously, the industry focused on the [indiscernible] or the grand opening for Q1. But now we moved towards monthly, weekly or even daily business development so that they become a career-based professional team. And the second point is that we adhere to regulatory requirements. We do not suspend products in order to enhance sales. We do not actually pitch the grand opening. So you would say the seasonality or the business pace this year is very different from the past. So this is our view on business, the pace of business. Despite all that, I would say we still focus on our transformation. That is to say, move from the number of agents to the core -- number of core agents. We move from treatment growth to production or productivity growth. So if we look at these indicators, I would say in Q1, the results were within our expectations. When once more importantly, return to the fundamentals of insurance of our business will focus on CI sales capabilities, focus on the daily activities and the serving of people, focusing on activity management on a day-to-day basis. So as I mentioned, the 5 key areas, so as long as we can be very good at the 5 areas, we can, yeah, improve the business. But of course, for any kind of transformation before the new model kicks in, we should persist in doing the right thing. As long as we can do that, we will see good results.

Well, thank you. Now let's welcome the next question. Now next question comes from, Guotai Junan Securities.

I'm Xiyu Sun from Guotai Junan Securities. Two questions. Number one, for Mr. Gu for P&C after the reform, auto reform. Now the premium impact was basically gone. What about -- what's your forecast for 2022 or combined ratio for 2021 was still on the increase. So what's your view on combined ratio? And for new energy vehicle insurance, what's your expectation? Because new energy manufacturers, they are also making some investments in the insurance sector. So will there be some kind of impact. And also second question about asset allocation. Your equity, share of equity investment was up in 2021. Now what about this year? What about the mix for this year?

Let me answer your first question about commercial auto insurance reform. Last year 2021, there was a whole year after the reform. Now originally -- initially, we had a lot of volatility. Now we have more stability. If we look at the industry as a whole, the premium level have made some -- actually recovered, I would say. Now we are in line with the industry average. So if we look at the combined ratio for the industry, well, there's still some pressure. Now for CPIC, after our 1-year hard work, where we actually improved customer operation, enhanced our pricing, for example. So we see some good results for combined ratio. So for our combined ratio for auto insurance, 98.7%, which is considerably, evidently better than industry average. Now what about this year? Now so far, if we look at the few months of this year, the premium was on the recovery for auto insurance, but I cannot make a whole year's forecast because there are 2 very good, very important sector. One is the growth of the automobile industry. Secondly is new energy vehicle or EV. Now if we look at the whole industry, I mean auto industry, it's quite -- under quite a lot of pressure. New energy vehicle is another picture. The growth is there, actually the exclusive provisions for new energy vehicle was released towards the end of last year. And the consumers also, yeah, had a lot of questions on the new exclusive provisions for new energy car. Now the standard premium actually decreased a little bit under the new provision. But well, the picture varies from company to company. For CPIC P&C, under the new regime, our total premium actually went up a little bit for new vehicles, new energy vehicles. If we look at the 2 years -- past 2 years, the growth for insurance for new energy vehicles was very fast; now at around 30% to 40%. And as of now, actually, we see over 100% increase. And the share of insurance for new energy vehicle also went up considerably. Now it's more than 10%. So you can see this kind of a growth trajectory, very fast growth for new energy vehicle insurance. And we also designed new innovative models for this which was welcomed by the industry, by the market also. But of course, if we look at the current period, combined ratio is quite high for new energy vehicle. But if we look at the time line, I would say the business quality is improving all the time. So we believe -- so as long as we do it in a scientific way, where we can contain the cost and make it into a growth -- new growth area. So we remain optimistic about it. So as you mentioned, some of the new vehicle manufacturers, new energy vehicles manufactured make investment in insurance sector. Of course, that would bring some pressure, but on the other hand, insurance is a very professional sector, for example, underwriting, pricing, et cetera, it takes a lot of time and the accumulation of expertise and the professional people. So all these cannot be replicated easily. So from this perspective, I would say insurance companies have our unique competitive advantages. We hope that -- of course, we hope that we can become more enabling. I would say competition would bring improvement. So this is a good thing. Thank you.

Let me answer your second question about asset investment in 2022. Now, of course, all of you are professional investors. So I believe you all agree that for 2022, it will be quite challenging in terms of investment. Especially for the macro economy, the downward pressure is quite big. And the Chinese government also said that, well, steadiness should be the key word for 2022 with active and more aggressive fiscal policies. Now for CPIC, starting from 2019, China stock market went up for 3 years. So given these kind of economic pressures in China and also challenging uncertainties in terms of the geopolitical situation, so CPIC will remain prudent. We will look at the liability side to meet the regulatory requirement and C-ROSS requirement so as to improve diversified asset allocation to meet long-term asset liability matching needs to focus on down-bell strategy. So if we look at the strategy, given our uniqueness and the market requirements, actually, our share of equity investment can still be improved a little bit. Of course, for Q1 this year, the capital market adjusted considerably. But for CPIC, we believe the capital market is more a matter of release of risks and a reflection of long-term investment value. We actually see a lot of potential opportunities and the need to seize these opportunities. But of course, for the long -- for the whole year of 2022, we will remain prudent about the stock market opportunities. Guided by our SAA, we will focus more on disciplined investment or TAA to seize structural opportunities on the stock market. But also in terms of our investment in real estate sector. Now, let me just tell you, if we look at the big categories, CPIC group in 2021, our investment type of real estate was CNY 7.5 billion and CNY 8.9 billion in terms of real estate fund investment. That is, in terms of a percentage, less than 1% of our total investments, then some underlying assets as real estate, including fixed income and equity type. Now all these combined, it was less than CNY 100 billion, all, also a small percentage of our total investment. Of course, there's some kind of a default on the market. There were reports of defaults on the market for real estate companies, real estate developers. Now actually, we have no fixed income investment in real estate sector. And for equity investment, our exposure to defaulted real estate developers was less than CNY 10 million because we always pay attention to risk management. We have very strict selection criteria. So currently, all the issuers that we invested in have a quite good risk control and financial position. We focus on the key areas, the infrastructure of key areas. We'll remain diversified in multiple areas so as to achieve stable cash flow, and we will seize trend, well, opportunities, trendy opportunities. So that's our big strategy for the real estate sector.

Well, thank you. Let's welcome the next question. Next comes from Goldman Sachs assets.

I'm from Goldman Sachs. I will not ask about the dividend payout question, now because your 5% -- well, dividend payout is quite good. Now this time around that you become more conservative. Now yeah, I can understand that. So when we have more certainty on C-ROSS II, maybe your dividend payout can go back. Now my question about the transition or transformation of your agency channel the total headcount actually dropped a lot because it went from 500,000-something to 300,000-something. So anyway, I mean, what's your view on the number of agents, total agents? Well what's your future plan to do for the recruitment of the number of agents.

I'm sorry, I didn't quite get your whole question. Could you repeat a little bit?

Now my question is about the number of your total agents because now, actually, the number of your agents has now went back to the level at 2014. And that's for the whole industry. Now -- but what about CPIC? Are you going to remove either more low-performing agents?

Thank you. I understand now. As you mentioned that actually the cancellation of the agent test or exam in the industry in China. Now the industry focused on massive recruitment to drive up the business for the agency channel starting from 2014. But well, with the diminishing of the kind of population dividend, this no longer works. So because our customers are becoming more demanding and more professional themselves. So this model of growth cannot be sustained anymore. So we should change or transform. So that is what we are doing. We are doing this kind of supply side reform. Many people believe that actually China's life insurance premium was down for several years. So does it mean that the demand is diminishing? But actually, based on our survey, our study across many cities, actually, the demand -- the market demand is still huge, be it for life insurance or health insurance or CI, et cetera. Because actually, China's per capita GDP exceeded USD 10,000. And once there, there will be explosive growth, potential growth for insurance. So we believe the demand side is there. No problem about that. But the issue is the supply side. There is a mismatch between demand and supply. For example, the middle class, their needs are not met. They will have more diversified needs. They would want professional and individualized services. So we need to provide them with professional services. But across the whole industry, not many agents can do this. So that is why we believe this is a challenge but also an opportunity. So this time around, our agency transformation focuses first of all, not on the pure number of agents. Actually, if you looked at the government reports, actually, our peers are all seeing huge drops in terms of number of -- total number of agents. We don't care about that anymore. We care more about effective agents, or core agents. We'll tell you more numbers about the numbers of our core agents, their activity ratio, their productivity, their income, et cetera, et cetera. That is our key focuses now. So maybe the number of total agents, total number of agents might go down still further, but for the few -- for the next few quarters, we will see a steady growth of core agents and we will choose these performing agents to train them, to improve their productivity and also improve their income. As long as they have more income, they will try to have better service and the better quality of business. So you are right. Yes, the total number of agents are happening across the industry, but that's not what we care most about. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's welcome the next question. Next will come from CITIC Securities.

I'm [ Li Xing ] from CITIC Securities. Now my question is for Mr. Gu. First of all, congratulations for the good performance for the P/C business in terms of volume and profit, especially for non-auto growth of 16% and also improve your combined ratio. And for liability and agricultural insurance, you did better than peers. So non-auto business, what are the reasons behind your good performance? And also a follow-up question, now there are more competition for non-auto sector. What's your strategy for 2022 and beyond? And another question for non-auto. Non-auto sector, now some of them have more high receivables. So how do you deal with that?

Thank you. Now, as we mentioned about the auto reform -- commercial at reform. So some small insurers actually turned to non-auto sector. So this non-auto sector becomes more competitive. For 2021, the market was quite unique because of COVID and because of the volatility, economic growth, there was a lot of exposure, risk exposure, so all these have combined to actually produce slow growth for the non-auto sector. Now although the growth was slowed down, but actually, we are still registering double-digit growth for CPIC P&C or 16.9% to be exact, clearly above market average and a combined compound growth ratio basis, that's more than what we have, more than 28%. Now the main growth driver came from health, liability, agricultural insurance. Why these 3 areas? First of all, is China's strategy national strategy, for example, for health, for people's livelihood, et cetera. And also, now these 3 areas actually previously most neglected or weakest area in China's insurance industry. So actually, we started to make the preparations in these so-called new areas many years back, we did a lot of the preparation, and now we are reaping the fruit. While we grow our business, we pay more attention to the improvement of business quality. Now 2021, I would say we did quite well in non-auto sector. So I would say we achieved both growth of value and volume. And for business quality, we focused on this kind of a collaboration or coordination, that is a collaboration between pricing and claims, so that we can achieve synergy internally. And secondly, we focused on the use of technology to achieve interaction between underwriting and claims settlement. And we also focused on the development or operation of our customers. So, while we developed our auto business, our non-auto individual business also achieved faster growth. And we also focused last year on some of the long-term problems. So we will break down the problem. We will focus on the big problems to break it down and solve them on a one by one. So I would say last year, we achieved some progress, but going forward, we still have a lot to do because non-auto sector has huge potential. And secondly, because a lot of the small and medium-sized insurers are entering non-sector -- non-auto sector. The pricing is becoming more competitive. And there is this kind of pressure from the underwriting side, especially global underwriting side. So we need a lot of expertise to handle all this. We have been improving our professionalism and expertise for non-auto sector for the past few years. So we are confident that we need to focus, remain focused on non-auto sector to increase our market share, and also by improving our capabilities, we should continue to enhance our non-auto health high-quality growth. Thank you.

Because of -- in the interest of time, we only have one more -- time for 1 more question. One last question. Next question comes from CICC. Thank you.

Mao Qingqing from CICC. I have 2 questions. Number one, you mentioned about the health and retirement sector to care about retirement and health of elderly people. So how can you differentiate yourself in turn in this sector? And second question is about Chairman Kong -- for Chairman Kong. So how do you sum up the year 2021? And what's your prospect for 2022?

First question about the health-related sector, our strategy and our differentiated strategy. Let me answer you this question. Now actually our strategy for health sector were approved by the Board. So we paid a lot of attention to it. And actually, we set up a task force headed by Chairman Kong, so as to implement various projects under this plan. Now, actually all work streams are going smoothly. For example, health care or health insurance, where we improved our business quality and the margin for health products remained stable, and health premium in -- and also, we -- in terms of the health premium and the number of customers, we also see steady growth. And also in terms of the health ecosystem, we are developing in terms of the on-line hospital to leverage more on technology because we have more than 100 million customers. We collaborated with [ Raixing ] to launch the Guangci On-line Hospital. And we also established, launched the CPIC Family Doctor, leveraging AAA hospitals, and also good pharmacies and health check institutions so as to build an ecosystem for health services. And we have more than 1 million customers for the CPIC Family Doctor launched last September. And we also -- actually offer around-the-clock services via the CPIC Family Doctor platform. We also have some, for example, collaborated with United Family Healthcare to make further investments in the health sector. And we also collaborated with Sequoia China to set up a new health foundation and to tap into the digital health sector. And last March, we get approval from CPIC to actually establish a specific capital investment to make investment in health-related sectors and focus on the investment in these health-related areas. So that's our main deployment in health-related areas.

Thank you for your second question. First of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our CPIC colleagues because, as you know, the COVID situation is very severe in Shanghai at the moment. So our colleagues in Shanghai actually did a lot of hard work to deliver the Board meeting last Friday and also release of our annual plan -- annual report and also they spent -- worked for several days and nights for this event. But also, I'd like to thank all of the investors participating online. You should also take care as far as I can remember, this is the third time I'm wearing a mask, face mask to take part in our results announcement. Now Shanghai is under a lot of pressure due to COVID because you can -- as you know, the Huangpu River is very quiet today, but I believe we will win the final victory. Shanghai will return to its dynamism. Looking back at the last year, I would say, we actually -- we forged ahead in steady steps. So I would say stability, that means stable growth and the progress means we are making progress. So I would say for CPIC as a whole in terms of our strategy, life is -- we launched a Changhang program for CPIC Life, right? Yes, and you also asked a lot of questions about the Changhang program. Changhang in Chinese means the long sail -- long sailing, literally. Now this is what we are going to do. We are going to become a professional life insurance company for the industry. We are resolute in doing so. But of course, resolution is not enough. If we want to win victory, we must have patience for P&C. Now I believe -- well, you asked several questions for P&C business because last year, we have some progress for P&C. So for P&C, I will say we should continue with our progress. What do I mean by that? I mean we should continue to reach out to our customers, to have refined management and development of customers, to start or resume our high-quality growth. Now, we just conducted a P&C work meeting and Mr. Gu have laid out a 4-year plan for growth. And our asset management should also play a reinforcing role because we should care most, care both about the asset side and the liability side. Of course, we should seize upon market opportunities as much as we can while managing risks effectively. So we should strike a balance and deliver a relatively good investment return. We will remain committed to long-term value growth, stable growth or prudent growth, prudent investment. And CPIC Service should actually be an enabler. But of course, CPIC Service, I mean the service does not mean that the rate -- the ratio of how much your costs actually get through to customers. We have more than 800 CPIC Service officers. They are going to serve our customers; go to our customers in times of difficulties. For example, our people would visit our customers in more than 1,000 counties across China. So we have a lot of affordable inclusive insurance services or products to our customers. So with CPIC, become more acceptable to our customers, become more concrete to our customers. Our services, as mentioned by Mr. Fu, where we -- actually is more about insurance plus service. And we have 1 more thing. That is the governance. So it's like a safeguard for our business. Our Board members become more and more diversified and professional. They have an international background. They are helping us to become more forward-looking in terms of big strategies. Now let me just tell you one thing, Mr. Fu and I myself, when we had a Board meeting, we are 2 executive directors and our independent directors are also there. So with -- let's say, we should tell you more about our agency transformation, our strategy for the health sectors. So of course, we are now doing this at this event. And of course, our communication would last beyond this event. Now what's my future, I mean, perspective for the future? I would say the challenge is there, but I remain confident. I would not delve too much on the challenge we face now, be it the market or the industry. And of course, different companies have different challenges. But we see rapid change of external environment. But I believe it's in this kind of situation, our persistency will be tested. Yes, you asked a long question about our dividend payout ratio. We should patiently give you answers. We should remain committed to value growth, to long-term growth, to become a leadership -- leader in the healthy and the steady development insurance sector. Five years ago, our judgment on the industry trend turned out to be correct, as Mr. Cai mentioned, to the 2 returns to return to our aspiration and to return to the fundamentals. CPIC should be a long-term player. So we need to return to our original aspiration and the fundamentals. We launched Transformation 2.0. So I would say, that gives us a new gene to seek change proactively. So you should not only read our annual reports, but also our sustainability report. So because that is the first sustainability report of CPIC in its 31st year history -- 31-year history. Now through those reports, you would see that CPIC is becoming more resilient. We are changing. So given these drivers, many of the things we are currently doing and what we plan to do will bring us a more promising future. So that is what I mean by the future is promising. Well, to be more specific, I would want to turn your attention to the transformation of our agency channel. We will focus around 8 projects. We will not rest until we meet our results, we meet the targets. Of course, there will be obstacles to the transformation. It's only natural, but we will not turn back. We will not actually beat around the bush. We will not take a wrong detour. Secondly, our health and retirement community are up and running despite the COVID pandemic. We are still going to build 2 to 3 retirement communities this year. We are talking to local governments. We hope to actually open 2 to 3 or start construction of 2 to 3. And so start construction and complete construction for 2 to 3 retirement communities. So we -- if we did that, then we have basically met the strategy -- strategic plans for health-related industry. And for CPIC Family Doctor, first, in Shanghai, we have 400 full-time doctors and the CPIC Family Doctor platform will enter a new stage of development this year. And for rehabilitation center, we are also making solid progress. As we mentioned, we will try to become an insurance with best customer experience. So this kind of a long-term service capability must be there. And thirdly, CPIC Capital was established last year. And we have a joint office of -- between CPIC and the Sequoia to explore opportunity in health-related areas. So all these moves will help us to explore this new area. And as Mr. Fu mentioned, the Guangci On-line Hospital, and we have also New Frontier Health Company. We also -- we have stakes in them all. Now we also newly established a CPIC technology to develop or leverage technology and translate them into business growth. Now given the COVID situation in Shanghai, I'm talking to relevant stakeholders. Well, actually, even just this day, we have more than 5,000 employees working remotely via VPN for CPIC. Now this kind of -- all these measures, especially technology application, means the future for CPIC. And fourthly, we will push ahead with our ESG initiatives. Last year, we signed 2 protocols. And last year, we also released a ESG report. So green, we will be green, seek green growth. But of course, one more important thing for ESG is the people. Not here -- we will continue to deepen our reform of talent cultivation and talent development. We focus on recruiting high-end talent and cultivation of reserve talent, young talent. But, of course, to achieve success, well, we need time. For 2022 and years beyond, as a responsible company, CPIC should remain stable, prudent, while seeking growth, especially given this kind of a very stringent situation. As I mentioned in the sustainable report, how can we remain focused to achieve sustainability? We should leverage all the factors to achieve synergy. But of course, we should work hard together to bring CPIC to a new level. Thank you.

Thank you for your answers. And before the meeting, we actually solicited questions from small- and medium-sized investors. And their questions were centered around the dividend payout, the Changhang program, auto and non-auto sectors. Now actually, most of them have been touched upon in the Q&A session. We are still getting a lot of questions from the video platform. We just select 2 of them. The first one comes from [ Mr. Wang ], individual investor. Now -- the question goes like your stock price was not good during the last year. So what -- how do you see that? And the second question is about, are you going to launch this kind of high-end medical insurance, for example, for overseas treatment? But if you have -- do you have enough provider system to do that? Now the first question, of course, actually, the stock price on the secondary market were, well, influenced by many factors. So last year, our stock price was not good. And I would say that currently, CPIC stock price was undervalued. I believe in terms of the reasons, there was COVID, there's uncertain economic situation, also geopolitical tension and also volatility on the stock market, on the capital market and the insurance sector is also undergoing transformation and the reshaping of the value chain, et cetera. But despite all that, we say that the long-term trend for China is good. The people are aging. So the fundamentals for long-term growth of the insurance sector is still there. So China's life sector or insurance sector is still one of the most dynamic in the world. And if we look at the market numbers, the total premium was CNY 4.49 trillion for last year. So density, insurance density is 3.94% and the average premium was CNY 3,000-something. So compared to mature market, we are still at this early stage. On our side, we will work hard. We remain committed to the long term to our main business. And you also heard a full presentation of our past performance last year. You would say our OPAT, our EV remained on a good trend. And especially, we -- actually, the number of our customers increased by 20 million. So on the long term, we are making the transformation in terms of talent development, in terms of the incentives and the governance, and we are also making deployment in terms of health and technology application. Now, second question, now first of all, in terms of strategy, we focused on the health-related sector, retirement-related sector because of the 2 reasons: number one, market demand. You see in China, consumers actually are having bigger and bigger demand for health and COVID actually stimulated need for health-related services. So if we look at the health insurance premium, this is evident. 2021, actually, health premium reached CNY 880 billion across China, double the growth rate of the life insurance as a whole. And China is also aging, so retirement service will be a very big sector in the future. And of course, the whole industry is undergoing transformation. So we need to change some of our traditional growth model with kind of a massive growth model, relying on the number of agents, focused more on sales rather than service, that is we don't focus on the needs of customers. Actually, there is a mismatch of demand and supply. So I will say, both externally and internally, we need to do a lot of work. And also, we have these potential opportunities. Now Mr. Fu and the Chairman Kong have gave you a lot of details on our future strategies. I would say CPIC will focus on health-related sectors. We will either build in-house or collaborate with external parties to actually develop our Products+Service model. So I believe all our investment and input in this will produce results. This will actually also enhance our interaction with customers so as to increase the stickiness of our customers. So we believe CPIC is a first mover in this regard. We hope to become a benchmark. Well, that was the answer to the 2 questions from small- and medium-sized investors. In the interest of time, we will end this Q&A session. Thank you all for participating. And for other questions unanswered, we will give you an answer after this event. If you have more questions, you can contact our IR team. Well, that's the end of our event. Thank you very much for your time.