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tate-owned insurance company PT Jamsostek harvested Rp 4.7 trillion (US$484 million) in revenue from its investments in the first quarter of 2013, adding to its accumulated investment fund of Rp 140 trillion as of March 31.

Jamsostek president director Elvyn G. Masassya said the company could maximize its yield of investment (YoI) after it reallocated part of the investment in private company bonds in the capital market with approval from the government as the firm's main shareholder.

'With the good YoI, Jamsostek's total assets increased to Rp 145.9 trillion in March this year from Rp 135.7 trillion on Dec. 31, 2012. With the same strategy, we are optimistic we can reach our targeted YoI of Rp 14.6 trillion and total assets of Rp 156.8 trillion this year,' he said at a press conference over the weekend.

'Of the total Rp 140.8 trillion, Rp 123.9 trillion was derived from pensions with only Rp 16.8 trillion coming from funds collected under occupational accidents and life insurance.'

Jamsostek's director of investment, Jeffrey M. Manullang, said that in order to attain maximum revenue and sustainability of return, Jamsostek had decided to allocate a large chunk of the funds for the purchase of shares of publicly listed state-owned enterprises, besides investing in bonds in the capital market.

He claimed that this investment strategy had given Jamsostek 16 percent annual growth from 2008 through last year. Between 1992 and 2007, Jamsostek's investments grew at only an average 8 percent per year, he went on. The company paid Rp 10 trillion in compensation and benefits last year, Jeffrey said.

Jamsostek is slated to become a nonprofit organization by January next year. Elvyn said the government had allowed Jamsostek to continue its current investment strategy, despite the transformation.

Elvyn said that Jamsostek would prefer to invest in private company bonds traded in the security market due to their higher yields compared to government bonds. He added, however, that Jamsostek would maintain a prudent and proportional strategy by not placing all the funds in the capital market.

Elvyn said that while Jamsostek's transformation into the country's social security provider was in process, it planned to go ahead this year with its programs to establish a hospital for workers in North Jakarta and two low-cost apartment buildings for workers in Cileungsi, West Java, and Semarang, Central Java, to improve workers' social welfare.

The hospital in North Jakarta will be a pilot project, with similar hospitals due to be established in Bekasi, West Java; Batam, Riau Islands; and Surabaya, East Java, to offer better health care to workers. The low-cost apartment buildings would be eighth and ninth, after the construction of seven similar buildings in industrial areas in Batam and Cikarang, West Java, he said.

'The funds used to build the affordable apartments and the hospital come from Jamsostek's annual profits and government dividends,' he said, adding that Jamsostek had stopped paying dividends to the government as its principal shareholder in 2008.