Aviva, the world’s sixth largest insurer, has received regulatory approval for its joint- venture company, Aviva-Cofco, to open a branch office in the city of Fuzhou. Aviva- Cofco is the first foreign insurer to be granted a licence to operate in Fuzhou, which has a population of 7 million people.
Aviva, the world’s sixth largest insurer, has received regulatory approval for its joint-venture company, Aviva-Cofco, to open a branch office in the city of Fuzhou. Aviva-Cofco is the first foreign insurer to be granted a licence to operate in Fuzhou, which has a population of 7 million people.
Fuzhou is the largest city in the Fujian province, which is in the south east of China. The province of Fujian has a population of 35 million people and is one of China’s major electronics manufacturing centres.
This new Fuzhou licence brings the total number of cities in which Aviva-Cofco has operations to nine. It already has branches in Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu, and has sales offices in Leshan, Mianyang and Nanchong (Sichuan province) and Zhongshan and Foshan (Guangdong province).
Charles Anderson, regional managing director, Aviva Asia Pte Ltd, said: "We are delighted to have received this licence for Fuzhou, particularly because it gives Aviva first-mover advantage in one of the most significant regions of economic growth in China and takes us a stage closer to achieving our longer term ambition of achieving an average 10 per cent market share in 10 Chinese cities by 2010.”
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Notes to editors:
Aviva is the world’s sixth-largest insurance group based on gross world-wide premiums and market capitalisation (at 31 December 2004); it is one of the leading providers of life and pensions in Europe and has substantial businesses in other markets around the world.