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

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to the 2022 annual results announcement of CPIC Group. I'm Su Shaojun, Board Secretary of CPIC Group and will be presenting on this meeting. Now of course, this is the first online plus off-line results announcement for 1 year. We are glad to have this opportunity to give you a presentation and exchange views on our performance. And also, we'd like to listen to your ideas, suggestions, recommendations on how company should further grow. Now today, we are actually simultaneously broadcasting the meeting from Shanghai and Shenzhen. And of course, investors can also, well, play back on the Internet. Now first, let me introduce the senior management. On the Shenzhen side, we have Mr. Kong Qingwei, Chairman of CPIC Group; and Ms. Pan Yanhong, Chairman of CPIC Life; and Mr. Zhang Yuanhan, CPIC Group CFO and Chief Actuary; and Mr. Zeng Yi; CPIC P&C General Manager; and Mr. Yu Rongquan, CPIC AMC General Manager. And on the Shanghai side, we have Mr. Fu Fan, CPIC Group President; and Mr. Gu Yue, CPIC P&C Chairman; and Mr. Yu Bin, CPIC Group Vice President; and Mr. Ma Xin, CPIC Group Vice President; and also Mr. Cai Qiang, CPIC Life General Manager and the CEO. And our independent directors will also join the meeting online. First of all, Mr. Fu Fan will give you a presentation on the performance, and then we will have a Q&A session. Now I may hand over to Mr. Fu Fan.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Fu Fan. And this is the first time in 3 years we will have this results announcement mainly from online but also plus -- mainly from off-line but also plus online. And welcome all of you, the friends, the investors, the analysts to this event. Now in 2020, we see a lot of challenges, for example, economic slowdown, the COVID and other changes in the world. The market is going through profound changes and transformation. We are yet to be fully established in terms of new growth drivers. Given this kind of unprecedented complicated market environment, we complied with regulatory requirements to pursue, perform and innovation and also to enhance corporate governance, capital planning. We took the initiative to ensure a stable operation and a healthy development of the company. CPIC Life initiated the Changhang Transformation in an all-around way to drive the shift of development model. For the P&C company, they focused on enhancing customer resources management, and for the asset management, we continued to optimize ALM mechanism across economic cycles and improved capability of professional investment. At the same time, we stepped up investment in health care and elderly care to promote transformation and innovation in key regions, such as Greater Bay Area and also the building of a big data system and the service capabilities. In terms of the numbers, gross written premium amounted to CNY 398.8 billion, a year-on-year growth of 8.7%, and group OPAT attributable to the parent was CNY 40.1 billion, up 13.5%. Group net profits fell by 8.3% to CNY 24.6 billion, and the group EV reached CNY 519.6 billion, up 4.3% from the end of last year -- previous year. And group total number of customers climbed to 170 million, and our group AUM reached CNY 2.72 trillion. Now as a company, we maintained a solid capital position, and our comprehensive and the core solvency margin ratio under C-ROSS II was 256% and 177%, respectively. Despite the decline due to impact of C-ROSS II, our solvency margin ratio of the group, CPIC Life and CPIC P&C maintained sufficient levels and complied with regulatory requirements. We are committed to ensure that our customers can share in the growth of the company. Last year, although net profit declined a little bit due to market volatility, but the Board still recommended a DPS of CNY 1.02, with a payout ratio of 40%, up 4 percentage points year-on-year. Since our listing, the annual average payout ratio has reached 46.4% at -- well, that's a market leader position. We disclosed OPAT. Well, this indicated more compatible with long-term nature of our business. Last year, our OPAT was 40.1% (sic) [ CNY 40.1 billion ], up 13.5%, and of this, OPAT from the life insurance was CNY 30.8 billion, up 9.1%. Also, our group EV maintained a steady growth, up 4.3%. In terms of composition, our group adjusted net worth amounting to CNY 298.1 billion, up 3.8%, and value of in-force business reached CNY 221.5 billion, up 4.9%. If we look at the -- the drivers, positive contribution mainly came from expected return on EV and NBV, with the increase of EV but the slowdown of NBV. NBV's contribution to EV has diminished. At the same time, the EV movement was also impacted by investment return variance and profit distribution. We continue to cultivate new drivers for high-quality development. We expand our efforts in health care, elderly care, diversified supply of the high-quality service. For example, our CPIC Home focuses on 3 product suites for different age groups of the elderly, with a total of nearly 20,000 certificates for admission issued so far. And 12 of our elderly care communities have been up and running in 11 cities, for example, those in Chengdu, Dali and Hangzhou. We also launched the first specialized rehab care program in the industry, the Yuanshen Rehabilitation. And our CPIC Blue Passport totally covered nearly 22 million people, and the CPIC Family Doctor attracted over 3 million registered users to provide health management service and online consulting. We also rolled out Lan Yi Bao, an Internet product brand seeking to redefine long-term tailor-made medical insurance based on customer segmentation. We deepened synergy of regional integrated development to boost regional growth drivers. For example, in the Yangtze River Delta region, we leveraged our headquarter's resources. And the Zheijiang branch of CPIC P&C surpassed the CNY 10 million (sic) [ CNY 10 billion ] mark in business volume. And in the Greater Bay Area, the regional headquarters is now in use. We boosted a healthy business development with the Guangdong branch of CPIC P&C exceeded CNY 10 million (sic) [ CNY 10 billion ] mark in business volume from individual customers. And the -- we also launched the specialized products and tailor-made services from Greater Bay Area by CPIC P&C, Life and Health. In the area of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, we developed value to central government agencies based on our insurance professional expertise. And in the Chengdu and Chongqing area, we leveraged our investment in health care and elderly care as well as our technology from headquarters. We delivered more benefits from synergy of CPIC insurance, life, health, et cetera. We also accelerated the building of a big data system to strengthen digital empowerment. For example, our Songjiang Data Centre only took 298 days to build. This is record in the industry. Secondly, we built a data middle platform to support customer service and the profile delineation and the label application. We also promote innovative R&D. Applications for 78 patents and 61 software copyrights were accepted, with continued enhancement of independent R&D. And fourthly, we realized working from long distance, formulated integrated and collaborative solutions for office work, offering service in differentiated and smart way. CPIC Technology is positioned as a subsidiary specializing in in-house service but in a market manner. We continue to expand our reach and penetration of customer service. By the end of last year -- and the total number of group customers reached 168 million, up 1.2% year-on-year. The number of customers with 2 policies stood at 37.05 million, up 13.8%, and we also have 2.51 million long-term insurance customers. And CPIC P&C for the -- the number of customers with SA on TPL of auto insurance of CNY 1 million stood at 22.87 million, up 4%, and for CPIC P&C, the online ratio of individual auto insurance customers reached 94.4%. And CPIC Life, 90% of inquiries and requests are now handled in a one-off manner. Last year, we have a total of 802 strategic accounts, and that's an increase of 211 from the end of last -- end of 2021. We also optimized the system for protection of customers' interest [ in Life ]. CPIC P&C and Life ranked high in the first evaluation by industry regulators on consumer rights protection to maintain their industry leadership in service indicators. For specific numbers for the life side, CPIC Life stayed focused on longtermism and stepped up and increased our supply side reform, deepened Changhang Transformation, and we have seen initial results. CPIC Life reported CNY 225.3 billion in GWPs, up 6.5%. And of this, FYPs amounted to CNY 66.4 billion, up 35.8%. Renewal premium was CNY 158 billion, down 2.4%. Business quality continued to improve, with 13-month persistency ratio improving 7.7 pts to 88%, and surrender ratio fell by 0.2 percentage points. We also continued to enhance our business growth and steady value growth. Our NBV last year decreased by 31.4%. However, NBV growth for the second half of the year grew by 13.5%, and the fourth quarter NBV growth was double digits. We also focused on core manpower to cement the foundation of agency force to drive healthy development. Our core manpower started to stabilize and with improvement in both productivity and income, for example, monthly average FYP per core agent reached CNY 28,261, up 31%. And monthly average of FYC per agent -- per core agent was CNY 4,134, up by 10%. We also made great efforts to diversify distribution. Now we have seen fast growth of bank channel with high-quality growth. For last year, the bank channel realized CNY 30.5 billion in GWPs, up by more than 300%, and the new business premium amounted to CNY 28.8 billion, up by 330%, and regular pay new business premium was CNY 3.3 billion, up by more than 224%. The share of bank NBV increased by 7 percentage points to 9.3%. CPIC Life is customer-oriented and committed to diversify our product offering to build a golden triangle system. In terms of the health protection, we upgraded Jinfu-Hejiahuan, our pillar whole-life CI product with expanded coverage for more competitive prices, benefiting 330,000 customers. And Aixiang Jinsheng got more innovation. That's a medical insurance product against cancer. For retirement and wealth inheritance, we promoted the Chang Xiang Ban. That's a product positioned to meet customers' need for risk protection, wealth inheritance and long-term saving, covering about 390,000 customers. And for wealth management, we also have various midterm annuity and endowment products to care -- for customers' mid- and long-term wealth planning and the provision of education needs. For P&C side, we persisted in high-quality development and adopted a targeted approach in strategies. We had quite good growth in our premium income for the whole year. We posted CNY 170.4 billion in GWPs, up 11.6%. Of this, auto business premium reached CNY 98 billion, up 6.7%, and the nonauto business grew by 19% to CNY 72.4 billion. Combined ratio was 97.3%, down 1.7 pts. And of this, the loss ratio stood at 68.5%, down by 1.1 pts, expense ratio 28.8%, down by 0.6 pts. P/C company continued to increase customer retention, enhance distribution channel. For example, combined ratio of auto insurance was 96.9%, down by 1.8 pt, and the loss ratio was 69.5%, down by 1.6 pt. Expense ratio fell by 0.2 pt to 27.4%. Under the new energy vehicles, premiums rise by 3.5% to 8.3% of the total business share. We continue to enhance the business quality and the structure. Last year, you can see our GWP, our combined ratio was 98.1%, down by 1.4 pts. For liability insurance, we captured workplace safety, environment protection and food safety opportunities. For the whole year, we delivered CNY 15 billion in GWPs, up 37.1%. For health insurance, we focused on existing business in medical insurance for critical diseases, accidental medical treatment, et cetera, to accelerate the R&D and the supply for high-end medical insurance. For the total year, GWP increased by 20% to CNY 14.6 billion. For agriculture insurance, we played its role in supporting rural invigoration, safeguarding national food safety. Our GWP increased by 32% to 13.8% (sic) [ CNY 13.8 billion ]. Guarantee insurance followed the guideline on value-driven operation, integrated development, compliance and prudence with continued empowerment in the smart operation. And we reported CNY 7.7 billion in GWP, up by 6%. For asset management side, our group AUM grew to CNY 2.72 trillion, and our group in-house investment asset amounted to CNY 2.03 trillion, up by 11.8%. Third-party AUM was CNY 698 billion, up by 11.6%. And we continued to implement a down bell-shaped asset allocation strategy to continue to increase long-term T-bonds and the government bonds and also enhance our alternative assets return. SAA continued to improve. By the end of last year, our fixed income assets stood at 73.9%, down by 1.8 pts. And the equity investment was 22%, up by 0.8 pts. And stocks and equity funds accounted for 11.5% of total investment assets, up by 0.4%. We conducted a TAA under the guidance of SAA and proactively responded to great volatility of the market. Last year, our net investment income was CNY 79.2 billion, up by 8.4%, and the net investment yield reached 4.3%, down by 0.2 pts. Our total investment income was CNY 76.5 billion, down 17.9%, which was mainly because of lower gains from securities trading. Total investment yield was 4.2%, down by 1.5 pt. And the growth rate of investment net asset value fell by 3.1 pts to 2.3%, largely because of the decrease in net of fair value movement of AFS asset booked as other comprehensive income. On the whole, we see -- we proactively managed and mitigated the risks. 97.9% of enterprise bonds and financial bonds issued by nongovernment-sponsored banks and had an issuer debt rating of AA or above. Of this, share of AAA reached 92.8%. And of nonpublic financing instruments with external credit rating with a share of AA above 99.6%, and the share of 96 -- share of AAA was 96.8%. NPFIs were either exempt from that issuer or secured with credit-enhancing measures. Underlying projects of nonpublic financing instruments spread across sectors like infrastructure, real estate, nonbank, et cetera, with a blended nominal yield of 4.8% and average duration of 7.3% (sic) [ 7.3 years ]. Well, actually, for 2023, we see things getting better with the 20th CPC National Congress. You see -- we see a lot of the opportunities in industrial upgrading, rural invigoration, green finance, green insurance, inclusive insurance, health and elderly care services, private pension scheme, et cetera, et cetera. Insurance funds will seize investment opportunities in the building of a modern industrial system and major products. We will continue to -- and the regulator set great store by risk control, and they continue to enhance supervision of corporate governance and institutional conduct. With the vision of the leadership in healthy and steady development of the insurance industry, we will pursue high-quality growth and stay committed to value growth and longtermism. We will continue to strengthen core insurance business to implement 3 key strategies, i.e., health care, regional integrated development and big data as well as to improve customer-oriented business management. Meanwhile, we will also promote ESG to enhance our sustainability of growth. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fu for your presentation. Now we enter the Q&A session. Since we are now conducting off-line from both Shanghai and Shenzhen, first of all, we will invite the on-site questions. Of course, we will also welcome your questions over the phone or over the Internet. Now please identify yourself before you make the questions, and please ask no more than 2 questions. Now first of all, we will ask Shanghai site. Please raise your hand if you want to ask a question.

I'm from Haitong Securities. Now first of all, congratulations. Given the difficulties last year, you actually achieved quite good performance in Q4 and the second half. Now I have 2 questions. Number one, for Mr. Yi Zeng, you've seen the Changhang Transformation program has been implemented for more than 1 year. We see quite some good progress in terms of core agent numbers, NBV growth, et cetera. Now are you planning for the second phase of the Changhang Transformation? And what are the main ideas and plans for the transformation? Second, for Ms. Pan, now as the Chairman of CPIC Life, so how was -- how do you comment on the Changhang Transformation? What are the biggest difficulties or challenges?

Well, thank you for your question. Now let me answer your first question. You see for the Changhang Transformation program, now it has been implemented for 18 months. I believe it has met our expectations in terms of the results. Now if we look at the different projects, for example, the agency channel, the alternative channel, you see products plus service. Now I believe now these streams have been, well, put in place. Now going forward, I believe we are going to deepen the transformation of our organization so as to release the initiatives, the passion, the energy of -- at all levels so as to enhance the productivity. For example, for agency team, they are going to become more professional, digitalized and career-based. But for the staff, on the staff side, we should also become more professionalized. Thank you.

Thank you. For the second question, I'll answer your second question. Well, first of all, thank you for your concern and attention for CPIC Life. As Mr. Cai had already mentioned, we have seen initial results and progress. I believe last year has been a year of hardship and difficulties given the COVID situation and other challenges. So the transformation has been met with more difficulties. But we believe that we have, well, passed the most difficult period. We had our anxieties and worries about the transformation. We suffered a lot, if I may say. But given last year's hard work, we believe we are now -- we have passed the period of the most difficult period. So we are not seeing positive trends on many fronts. Now if you ask me about the most -- the biggest difficulties and challenges, I believe time is the biggest constraint, especially you see for last year, given a lot of the factors, we believe in terms of our high-level design in implementing those rolling out to the branches, now we will feel that time is not on our side. We don't have enough time to implement those designs. So that's my first impression. Now secondly, in terms of the process of the transformation, I believe the most valuable thing is that we are now all on the same page regarding the direction of the transformation. So going forward, we need to persist with it. We need to keep doing it. We should not -- well, we should not hesitate or doubt ourselves.

Thank you. Now let's, well, invite the second question from the Shanghai side.

I'm from Guotai Junan. I have actually 2 questions regarding P/C side. Now it's -- we are glad to see this better-than-expected results from CPIC. Especially for the P&C side, you see you actually were the industry-leading in your performance. So how did you do that? Could you give us more details, especially for the liability side? Now what are exactly the lines of business for liability insurance? Which areas grew fast? And also, second question, the P&C side, profitability is improving -- was -- it has been improving over the past 2 years. But the industry, the market is changing, for example, commercial insurance reform and also other players entering the market. So how about the long-term strategy of P&C?

Thank you for your question. Now if I may just give you a few more details on P&C side. Now for ourself, we would say that we'd like to benchmark against the best. Now we pursued -- maintained high-quality development, and we actually gained market share. For example, it grew by 0.3 percentage points, and our auto and agriculture insurance also all see growth in market share. And our combined ratio actually improved, actually become the best in 10 years at 97.3%, down by more than 1 percentage point. Now of course, this indicator was better than our listed peers and also better than the industry. Our ROE was also the best in 10 years and also better than our listed peers, up by 3.2 pts to reach 16.9%. At the same time, I also believe that we made progress in 4 areas. For example, first of all, the system of customer development and also enhanced organization and the efficiency and also, thirdly, enhanced our efficiency and also balanced our operation and compliance. And fourthly, we also provided a better experience to our customers to actually enhance the balance of our customers from our services. Now these contribute -- all contributed to our good results. But of course, we all know last year was a very remarkable year. And it was the same for P&C company. We took a lot of effective measures to handle the uncertainties and, well, the challenges.

No, I would say that -- I would say -- I'd like to comment and summarize our performance last year. We enhanced high-quality development, persisted with compliant operation, persisted with innovation. So we kept doing it 100% of our efforts. So despite difficulties and despite the hardships, so that was a hardworking spirit from the P&C company. And also, on top of the transformation 2.0, we implemented various sustainable development strategies and measures. For example, that is the 3.0. We continued with the -- kept up the good progress. And fourthly, we maintained our practical approach. And fourthly -- fifthly, we, well, did [ ensure ], didn't neglect the part of efforts, for example, in the new energy vehicle and the various other areas in terms of capacity building. Our share of NEV enhanced to more than 10%, 13%. And also, we launched various efforts in the new energy vehicle. As a result, new EV and EV contributed a lot to our growth momentum of auto business. Now regarding the liability business, we are 1 of the top 3 who gained underwriting profitability. Well, that's mainly because we actually optimized the bad-quality business, enhanced our management and the quality of the business, and our share of our agricultural insurance market share also improved. Well, that's roughly it.

Well, thank you. I'd like also to answer your second question. Well, Mr. Zeng commented on our performance for last year. Now all this progress and results means that the strategies have paid out. I would say -- over the past 2 years, we focused a lot of our attention on high-quality growth and sustainable development. And we also actually designed various strategies and measures with 2 focuses. In terms of business operation, we want high-quality business. And in terms of growth, we would want it to be sustainable. So that is to say we would want effect -- efficiency and, well, resilience and the progress. Now, we have 3 drivers. First of all, we focused on sustainability of our growth. On top of our traditional strength, we enhanced our efforts in green insurance, technology insurance and agriculture-related insurance. As you know, actually, these areas received a lot of attention from society as a whole. In terms of the green insurance, we actually set up a sustainable development research institute. And for NEV, we also made a lot of efforts, and you can see efforts were also made for green power generation, carbon-related assets, et cetera. We made breakthrough in these areas. Now for last year, according to the CBIRC standards, our green insurance growth was more than 30%. So that's -- well, the share of our green insurance was 30%, and our new energy vehicle also grew quite fast. So we believe this trend will continue for green insurance going forward in the next few years. We enhanced our professionalism to enhance our operation. And also, we focused on enhancing efficiency, for example, food safety, big machinery for the country. So we will focus on risk management, focus on the efficiency and the results. We took an active part in a lot of big projects, for example, high technology, manufacturing, aero and the aero industry, the air industry. So these -- we were always an active participant of those areas. So last year, we see very fast growth for agriculture insurance. So in -- on a consolidated basis, we are now #2 in the industry. That's a very, very, very big achievement because 8 years ago, we were ranked #8. But now we are #2 for agricultural insurance. As we mentioned, we focused on sustainable development. Based on our new strategies, strategic targets, we had a 3-year plan in order to build our capacities. So this is year 1. Second year would be breakthrough for sustainable development. And the third year would focus on high-quality, well, construction. Now given this kind of a 3-year plan, we focused on 3 capabilities and the 4 pillars and the 15 specific projects. So these focus on our leadership in the market and also targeted marketing and mid-office efficiency and the back office, STP implementation or execution so that we can have refined and targeted management and operation so that our sustainable development can continue to improve. And certainly, we also focused on system-based management, leveraging digital capabilities, plus intelligent technologies. Now of course, technology develops very fast in recent years. For example, the ChatGPT is a very hot topic and advancement in technology. We believe these technology advancement can boost business growth, but we believe this will also change the pattern or the landscape of business. So we need to focus on 2 areas. Number one, we are going to continue to build what we call P&C -- CPIC P&C brain that is to mine the data, collect the data so as to build a data-based network, so we have to build the foundation for targeted management. And secondly, we are going to apply the smart-end technologies so as to achieve automation for basic operations and make the experience for our customers become automated and effortless. So I believe these were some of the key contents of our strategies for the future. And going forward, we are going to seize the opportunities in the process of modernizing China to promote high-quality sustainable development. So that -- based on that, we can serve the society and the economy and also return to our investors. So well, that's it. Thank you.

Well, thank you for your answer. Now let's welcome questions from the Shenzhen side.

I have 2 questions, actually. I'm from Xinhua News Agency. My first question is about the -- now as you see in the recent years, we had quite a lot of restrictions from COVID. Both the bank and insurance companies faced a lot of challenges. So given these realities, how did the management of CPIC would comment on your own performance last year? And the second question is going forward, given the challenges and uncertainties in China and abroad. So given these, what's your plan to address these challenges so as to meet your aspirations, meet your targets to become a leader in the industry in healthy development?

Well, thank you for your question. Let me answer your -- answer this. Now first of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the investors, especially those who are here on site. Now you see -- maybe you have noticed. Now you see we are now conducting this on-site in both Shanghai and Shenzhen. This is the first time we've been -- we did this in more than 10 years. It's my sixth time for the results announcement. And secondly, P&C and the Life Chairman were also in the meeting. And we also have Chief Actuary on site. And actually, all our management participated in this meeting either online or off-line. If you look at the 2020 performance of CPIC Group, first of all, I would say we should focus on the big numbers, the total numbers, 2020. Now as a group company headquartered in Shanghai, we delivered these numbers, well, and you can make the calculation on yourself -- by yourself. Well, we grew 8.7%. Well, actually -- I, myself, actually would like to thank our people for delivering these numbers. I myself is satisfied. But of course, the pace of growth is a sustainable one. I hope that this year will be even better than last year. I'm confident about it. Secondly, we should look at the quality -- business quality. Now what I mean by quality internally is P&C -- and well, as we mentioned, the P&C is improving in quality, actually, the best in 10 years, but we shall continue to improve it. Now for Life side, the Changhang Transformation is a beginning, especially for the second half of last year, but the key indicators, you can see promising trends -- improving trends. Now so far, Q1 this year, we believe this improving trends are continuing. And actually, I believe you have also noticed the regulators' comment for CPIC for Q4. Life and the P&C all got good results. I believe we lead our peers. So while expanding business, we should also focus on quality of business. And thirdly, also, on the asset management side, we also need to focus on quality. Now led by Mr. Fu, we took a lot of management measures in a -- well, at an early date, we maintained our prudence, so by -- either by the total volume or by quality and by the incremental growth. Well, I, myself, care about the number of our total customers and also the number of customers who have multiple policies from CPIC. This indicates the synergy of different CPIC subsidiaries. But of course, this growth is also reflected in our strategy to pursue big health, the big regional integration and big data. Of course, last year had a lot of challenges, but we still met our qualitative targets. And this year, I believe you will see more progress, more results in this regard. In May, CPIC Group will conduct a CPIC health China program launch so that more customers will be able to see that CPIC Group is improving or has improved its service capabilities. Now I believe you will see, this year, 8 CPIC Home up and running. Currently, we have 3. But this year, there will be 5 more CPIC Home up and running. So it's from scratch, from 0 to 3 to 8. So well, that shows our spirit. And also this year, we are going to finish. And it's 15 Homes in 12 cities, definitely will include the Guangzhou in the Greater Bay Area. So that's to answer your first question, how to comment on our performance last year. And to answer your second question, how to tackle the complex situation environment. Now actually, as to our aspiration to become a leader of a healthy development in the industry, well, we've been saying this in, well, for 6 years. We should focus on 3 basic factors: number one, persist in pursuing value growth, focus on the investment responsibility and persist in longtermism and the bottom line of risk management. Now as my colleagues have mentioned in their answers, we need to implement these strategies. And secondly, we should focus on innovation because insurance is a traditional industry. However, it is a growing industry. So we should focus on delivering these 3 strategies, the aspirations into our daily work so as to turn them into business engine. But all these cannot be done without innovation. So innovation is key to our future transformation and also the total -- the whole growth of the industry. And thirdly, we should continue to focus on quality management on the liability side. This is about -- this is actually what the investor wants. And also, this is about protecting our customers. We should put it into our corporate culture. So anyway, focus on value, focus on innovation and maintain business management on the liability side will mean that we can pursue industry leadership in healthy and sustainable environment. Apart from these 3 factors, I believe there are still more factors. Number one, digital transformation, how to leverage digital technologies. China also has a big plan for digitalization, digital development. CPIC is also making efforts in this regard. With our efforts, we hope that CPIC can lead the peers, lead the industry in digitalization. It will be a hard one. We still have a lot of work to do. And secondly, market-oriented talent, I mean, attracting and retain these market and younger talent. This is key to sustainable development of the company. So we are going to hold another talent development meeting internally. We will focus on become market-oriented to take a professional approach and international approach. But of course, we would also launch a sophisticated talent incentives and constrained mechanism. And thirdly, we should abide by the bottom line of risk management in terms of compliance, in terms of legal operation, compliant operation, customer rights protection, et cetera. So we cannot -- well, we cannot neglect these factors.

Well, thank you, Chairman Kong. Now we continue with the questions from the Shenzhen side.

I'm Xue Yuan from CICC. Now I'd like to ask -- well, maybe a few question about investment. Last year, there's a lot of uncertainty in China and outside China. And so my question for [ Mr. Yue ], what was your take on 2023 in terms of market and the interest rate? And so -- and what about CPIC's investment strategy and your performance for this year in terms of investment?

Well, thank you for the question on investment. For 2023, I myself believe that we are going to pass the impact from COVID, so we're going to see a lot of recovery. So for the economic numbers so far, we can see the trends of recovery. Now of course, the external demand is weakening, and the internal demand is improving. Global economy is slowing down. But for China domestically, the policy is helping the economy. So China's economy will pick up, will recover to meet a target of 5% of GDP growth. So profitability will improve for companies. Now for SSA -- SAA, we believe funding will pay more attention to China investment and for the equity side. In terms of economic cycles, you can see contraction -- we will move from contraction to recovery, and the Federal Reserve were likely to stop its interest rate hikes. So we believe combined -- these factors combined, equity market will have some opportunities. Currently, the dividend rate and the premium for equity is also at high levels. So we believe stocks are actually becoming more attractive. So under several scenarios, we believe the moderate recovery will become more likely this year. So that's for the equity market. And for the interest rate, given the economic recovery, we believe the interest rate might move up a little bit, but of course, policy-wise, there will not be very strong [ stimuli ]. So it will be a gradual process. We should pay attention to the core inflation hike and also the fluctuation of the wealth management sector. That is the volatility of the market. So that's for the fixed income assets. And lastly, in terms of our SAA under the new IFRS standards, we should balance the volatility with returns of our assets. It will be a big challenge. And also, we need to think about the longtermism, the bottom line of risk management, how to actually conduct SAA across economic cycles so as to took an active role, proactive role. For this year, we're going to focus on 3 things: number one, to match insurance funds with long-term assets, that is, ALM matching. So that will be long-duration investment on assets. We're going to, of course, make good on the timing for these long-duration assets because we believe there might be some big volatility in terms of interest rates. So we will do a very good job with timing. And for equity side, including stocks and funds and this kind of unlisted equity, for this year, we are going to focus mostly on the balance of volatility and the long-term return. To be specific, number one, focus more on stocks with high dividend payout and the performance -- long-term performance growth. So it will be our response to the new IFRS standards. Secondly, focus on these kind of growth companies in line with new energy direction, for example, health care and also in sectors aligned with green sector, national security-related sector, safety, et cetera. And certainly, we're going to expand the investment scope, for example, risk and other alternative assets, so as to complement or supplement the long-term investments. And of course, we will serve the national economy by leveraging the nature of insurance funds, for example, some infrastructure from the national strategy. Well, thank you.

Well, thank you, and let's welcome more questions from the Shenzhen side.

I'm Guolian Securities. Now first of all, thank you for your hard work for past year. You had a better-than-peer performance. And also, I'd like to thank Chairman Kong for your hard work in the last 6 to 7 years. Now I actually have a question about risk management. We have seen some news reports about this kind of financial risks overseas. So people worry about whether these risks would spread to China. Now as the Chairman Kong mentioned, CPIC has always been a prudent company. So I'd like to ask about this kind of a contagion of financial risks from outside China. So any lessons learned from these events? And also maybe a question for Mr. Zhang Yuanhan about risk management, about the survey from the CBIRC. So maybe Mr. Zhang can also comment a little bit on that.

Thank you for your question. The first question, maybe I can try to answer you on that. Now, of course, recently, the Silicon Valley Bank and the Credit Suisse encountered some liquidity risk events. Well, it caught the market by surprise, a lot of anxiety and also worry about systematic financial risks and contagion of these risks. If we look at ourselves, in terms of investment, we have no exposure to these financial institutions. So on the -- how this risk events -- these events are still ongoing, this, of course, uncertainty -- financial uncertainty still increasing in the world, especially the cash or liquidity issue, liquidity risk, where just this morning, we actually had a talk with a partner from -- of ours who have been deeply involved. We believe mismatch of ALM and concentration of liquidity and the internal control failure, et cetera, et cetera, these issues might be the reasons for these unfortunate events. We believe we should manage risks. It's the job of financial institutions to manage risks to serve the real economy, rather than generate, create risks. The matching of liability and the investments -- I mean matching ALM is key task for insurance companies. We should have effective management of concentration risk so as to get rid of -- or address the risks of mismatching. As we have noticed, actually, the Chinese government issued -- well, announced that China is going to set up a financial supervisory commission on top of the CBIRC. So CPIC Group, we always pay great attention to the bottom line of risk management so as to balance growth with risk management, with focus -- always focused on healthy and sustainable development. We always focus on building an RM system aligned with our risk profile so as to, well, have effective capability to identify, to prevent, to issue early warning about risks. Now but talking about these risks, the lessons we learned, we believe we should focus on 3 areas. Number one is to deepen our supply side reform to develop this big data, big health and regional integrated services, integrated development; secondly, focus more on our insurance business to focus on value growth. P&C will focus on profitability growth to seize opportunity from green development, and the Life will focus on the Changhang Transformation to achieve sustainable NBV growth. And thirdly, to respond positively to the IFRS 9 and 17. We believe this launch of new standards will not change our strategies, that is, to provide a long-term stable growth and return to our shareholders and investors because our strategies, our targets actually are based on market demand on our core competitiveness and on our values. So we will continue to pursue high-quality growth with effective ALM and risk management so as to, well, pass the transition.

Well, if I may answer the second part of your question. Now recently, you said that the CBIRC actually conducted a survey or a seminar with the chief actuaries of insurance companies. Now actually, if it is true, then we believe it is a right approach from the regulators' perspective. We believe they should balance the gains and risks. As the interest rate goes down in China, traditional insurance will become less and less desirable, but our insurance is becoming more popular or attractive to insurance company and the regulators. Now given the new standards, we know that for par life, par insurance actually is quite stable. So given the new trend, maybe par insurance will become more desirable choice for us.

Well, thank you. Now let's welcome the questions from the -- over the phone.

[Operator Instructions] Well, let's welcome [ Jo Chan ] from Credit Suisse.

I'm from Credit Suisse. I have 2 questions. Number one, about the dividend. This year, the payout ratio is -- the payout is CNY 1.02, maybe lower than investors' expectations. So why was it set at CNY 1.02? Now are you going to actually adjust your dividend payout policy given these new changes, C-ROSS II, et cetera, new IFRS standards, et cetera, so that we can have more certainty in the future? Second question, as we know, incremental whole-life products is quite a big product, flagship product for your company. So my question is that how do you view the product increment to whole of life? As Mr. Zhang mentioned, the par life is going to be a better choice. So what's your future perspective?

Let me answer your first question. Now you see the payout -- the dividend -- proposed dividend is based -- as we mentioned last year, we faced a one-off adjustment on the C-ROSS II. So our plan for P&C would issue capital and supplementary debt. And for Life side, we would hope to issue this kind of nonfixed, well, debt. Now for P&C, they already issued some debt-enhanced solvency by 25%. And August last year, the CBIRC released a manager or rules for the nonfixed term debt issuing from insurers. For the long term, we would like to, well, send long-term stable return to investors. So of course, it should be based on our business performance and also our strategies, et cetera. So we are, of course, still growing our business, making, well, plans for business growth. We plan to bring more returns to investors. Well, also, for the second question, the incremental whole-life product, the product from the design side is a quite good product. Of course, whether it is traditional life or par life, I believe based on different interest rate levels, what we believe the design of products should follow with the declining interest rate. If it continues to decline, then maybe par life -- using par life to design an incremental whole life would be better. I believe that's my answer to the question.

We only have time for the final question.

Well, [ Jiao Yao ] from Morgan Stanley.

I'm from Morgan Stanley. Now 2 questions from me. Now I believe -- one for the IFRS standards. Now the first question, you see. Now with the new launch of I-9 and 17, well, there might be some new changes. So could you tell us something about the impact. For example, on profit, for assets, what will be the impact to be? So your product strategy, business strategy, will it change accordingly? And secondly, as you mentioned, the 3 strategies, the big health, big data and the big region integrated synergy. So could you tell us something about the progress already or the plan for the future?

Well, first of all, by the standards, new standards, now CPIC is a [ A-plus-H-plus-G ] listed company. So we will adopt the new I-9 and 17. You see under these new standards, we believe the premium will decline, profit and net assets will see more uncertainties. Now for the premium income, now you see for Life side, the investment side will not be counted into the premium income, and they will be spread across the contract period. So that is -- so for the insurance contract -- well, but for the net assets, there will be more volatility. Under new standards, more said type will be counted as to be priced at fair value price. So you will see more volatility for profit and the net assets. For Life side, the curves' changes will be -- the changes in the curves will be offset somewhat, and the profitability assumption changes will also be offset by CSM. And the dividend will use VFA standards. So these changes would actually reduce the volatility on the liability side. However, the total volatility will be higher. Now for P&C side, with the launch of I-9, profitability will see more volatility. And the liability side, the changes will not be obvious. Now for net assets, the volatility will be higher. Now for example, previously, they used 750 moving day curve. But on the I-17, the new standards, they would use the spot rate in the calculation of the reserves, so the volatility will be higher. But for fixed asset, the calculation will use the fair value price. So that would be just the opposite on the liability side. So the volatility will be offset a little bit, but on the whole, the volatility will improve. For the P&C side, the net asset's volatility will not change a lot. So for the new standards in terms of the internal management of the company, there will be some influence, but it will not change the logic of our business operation. It will not change how we assess our performance. It will not also affect our long-term pursuit of value and sustainable growth. It will not change our performance assessment system. So it would call for higher capability in terms of sophisticated management and also liability matching -- ALM matching. So we would actually adopt -- leverage these new standards to exercise, to achieve transformation of our business operation. And we also noticed that there's been a lot of discussion in terms of incremental life. We believe we should focus more on life -- par life so as to diversify our portfolio and reduce the volatilities. And under the new standards, the results will be more transparent. Especially, the operation variance will become more evident. We always focus on the management of in-force business. Under the new standards, we need to enhance the operation variance management, focus more on the attribution analysis so as to enhance or grow our operation variance in a positive way. So we need to focus more on ALM, pursue long-term rhythm to have a dynamic ALM management.

Well, thank you for your attention to the big health strategy of CPIC. Now we've -- actually, you see -- it's a very important strategy of the company because, first of all, it can create value because we create value for our customers for their whole life cycle. And secondly, we need to focus on the long term. It is a systematic work. So as long as it is good, and we -- as long as we have certainty, we should do it. We have a special steering committee for big health development, and we have set out the milestones to implement the BD. Now we have moved from the blueprint phase to the results -- initial results. We see steady growth of health-related insurance premiums, and the number of our customers using our health services increased by 150% last year. We actually did a lot of things in terms of a big health development. Number one, that is the innovation to actually leverage our innovation, to enhance our function in Pillar 2 and Pillar 3. For example, high-end medical insurance, so that actually, the employer and the EB plan can move from mid-end to high end. And for medical care, we actually enhanced the coverage -- expanded our coverage to include the older people and also people with preconditions. And secondly, we enhanced our service branding. We leveraged our online and off-line resources to focus on the elderly and also in juvenile. We actually launched a lot of brands. The CPIC Family Doctor is developing very fast. And we also established a rehabilitation research institute, Yuanshen Rehabilitation institute. And also, we collaborated with other insurance providers to actually enhance health for juveniles. And we also take a stake in the Guangzhou online hospital. And our CPIC Home actually currently has more than 3,000 beds. Now with improved capability of service, our insurance will become more competitive. And these efforts would also become -- will also help enhance the agent's professionalism by giving them more training in terms of health care. Last year, we actually trained more than 10,000 agents in terms of health care. And thirdly, we do it in a professional way. We do it in a market way -- market-oriented way. We actually attracted a lot of professional people into the health sector of CPIC in terms of service innovation, big data and online medical resources. 2023, this year, will be the third year in which we implemented our 5-year plan for big health. Going forward, we will continue to focus on value generation and the longtermism so as to make more return to investors, who care about big health. Well, if I may also well, add a little thing on the big health, we leveraged digitalization -- digital tools. For example, starting from 2020, we actually designed ITSP, ITAP, ITDP, now this kind of technology planning for health. We actually launched ITDP 2.0 last year to focus on our self-driven R&D and development capability and also innovation and services. Now it contains a lot of content. Let me just share with you some numbers on our progress in the last 3 years. Number one, in terms of the structure of our people -- in terms of high-end customers, we have 60. Now 60 of them are high-end talent. AI talent increased by 70%. Big data talent increased by 93%. In terms of the IP, we also made a breakthrough. As mentioned, last year, we had 78 patents accepted by the government and also get 61 copyright registered. In terms of efficiency enhancement, we improved our operation center, the efficiency and RPA. So I would say we will actually save costs to the tune of millions. Now actually, in terms of data consolidation, we had more than 8,000 data model and consolidated 917 million pieces of data, and we build a company-wide AI mid-office platform to empower 56 scenarios. And we also had more than 200 million times of data interaction. Now in terms of digital empowerment, we are making a new round of AIDP plan, as mentioned by Chairman Kong. Digital China is like our high-level design. We would like to use data to generate production. Now ChatGPT, we also had some research into that. Maybe we can use digital employee to serve Generation Z customers. Well, this might be a new breakthrough for life insurance industry. But of course, all these should also be combined with insurance industry, insurance business. We would have a new service, new [ IM ], new segmentation, new research and development. Well, in the interest of time, I'd like to add a few sentences on the regional integrated growth. It's mainly about the model and also empowerment. In terms of Yangtze Delta River region, which should enhance our value generation and also serve a national strategy in terms of commercial insurance, helping the national strategy. For the Greater Bay Areas, apart from faster growth of the P&C and Life growth, we also set up a green fund to enhance our -- to innovate our product and service, to launch exclusive Greater Bay Area products. And for Beijing and Tianjin and Hebei, we will continue to collaborate with government bodies to focus on new sectors to enhance customer development capabilities. Thank you.

Thank you for the questions and answers. Now we need to end the Q&A session. Of course, we also continue to enhance the protection of small- and medium-sized investors. They also raised several questions about the growth of Life and also future plan for Life. And also, the launch of new IFRS standards, I believe we have answered most of them, and we will continue to answer your questions off-line after the meeting. And thank you for your concerns and the support for CPIC. Well, if you want to ask follow-up questions, you can follow it off-line. Thank you very much. That ends our meeting. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]