Approval Obtained for Establishing Myanmar Liaison Office
[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] Kyobo Life Insurance will start selling insurance in Myanmar in the second half of next year.
Kyobo Life Insurance announced on the 28th that it has obtained final approval from the Myanmar authorities to establish a resident office in Myanmar. In June, Kyobo Life Insurance submitted a notification to the Financial Supervisory Service in Korea to establish a Yangon resident office and received approval from Myanmar's Financial Regulatory Department.
The Myanmar government has allowed foreign insurance companies to enter the market since January last year, and Kyobo Life Insurance is expected to become the only domestic life insurance company to enter Myanmar.
Kyobo Life Insurance plans to complete procedures such as business registration for the office within this year and is currently negotiating with prominent potential partners in Myanmar to establish a life insurance joint venture (JV).
Although Myanmar's life insurance market penetration rate (premium income relative to GDP) is low at 0.01%, the average economic growth rate over the past three years has reached about 6.2%, and continuous economic growth is expected in the future. Due to policies fostering the financial industry, increased insurance demand from rising incomes, and an average population age of only under 30, the life insurance market is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 40% until 2028.
This Southeast Asian expansion is described as part of the "ambidextrous management" declared by Chairman Shin Chang-jae of Kyobo Life Insurance. The management philosophy is to focus on existing business with one hand while discovering future growth engines with the other.
Currently, Kyobo Life Insurance operates Kyobo Life Asset Management corporations in the United States and Japan, and resident offices in Beijing, China, and London, United Kingdom.
A Kyobo Life Insurance official stated, "We judged Myanmar to be an economic and geopolitical key point for local market research and business feasibility review of the Southeast Asian insurance market," adding, "We plan to gradually expand our entry into countries where customer acquisition is possible, including ASEAN and India in the New Southern Policy region."
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