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ife insurance company PT AIA Financial recorded substantial growth in all key financial ratios last year, including increases of 464 percent in total investment income to Rp 4.9 trillion (US$380 million), 30 percent in total investment to Rp 33.89 trillion and 55 percent in total net income to Rp 1.11 trillion.

AIA president Ng Kee Heng (Ben Heng) said in a statement that the company had also booked a 23 percent increase in premium income to reach Rp 8.8 trillion, and a 16 percent growth in new business premiums to Rp 3.17 trillion.

'€œThese impressive records should be attributed to the substantial increase in the quantity and quality of our marketing staff, both in sales agencies and bancassurance,'€ Ben Heng noted.

He assured AIA policy holders that the company'€™s risk-based capital ratio for conventional insurance reached as high as 1,088 percent, way above the minimum requirement of 120 percent, and that its risk-based capital ratio for sharia insurance also rose to 142 percent, far higher than the minimum 30 percent.

The AIA chief foresees a bright future for the insurance industry in Indonesia, supported by the steadily rising population, a low insurance penetration of just 2 percent, the increasing number of middle-class people and the high rate of urbanization.

In a related development, the Association of Indonesian Life Insurance Companies predicted that new business premiums in the life insurance sector would continue to grow by at least 23 percent a year, its assets by 18-32 percent and investment by at least 13 percent.

AIA Financial is the Indonesian subsidiary of the Hong Kong-listed AIA Group Ltd., the world'€™s fourth-largest insurance company by market capitalization. JP/vin