China invests $240b insurance capital overseas, by Chen Jia, chinadaily.com.cn

China invested $239.55 billion insurance capital in overseas market by the end of 2014, accounting for 1.44 percent of the total assets of the insurance industry, said Zhou Yanli, vice chairman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) on Friday.

About 20 percent of the overseas investment was for real estate projects, he said.

The largest part of overseas investment was in terms of equity investment, especially in the Hong Kong market, according to the official.

"The CIRC will closely watch potential risks in the global financial market and give warnings to insurance institutions to prevent large loses," said Zhou.

The CIRC has expanded investment scale for insurance capital and reduced some investment threshold for institutions in 2014.

West sanctions will not hurt Sino-Russia ties: PBOC, by Chen Jia, chinadaily.com.cn

Western sanctions on Russia will not affect its financial cooperation with China, said Pan Gongsheng, deputy governor of People's Bank of China, at a press conference on Friday.

"We believe that Russia has more room in the policy to fight against economic difficulties," said Pan.

"The current financial cooperation between the two countries is sound and based on mutual benefit. The central bank will support financial institutions from the two sides to develop legal business," he said.

Wang Zhaoxing, deputy chairman of China Banking Regulatory Commission, also said that the two countries have great potential in energy and financial cooperation.

"China's financial industry will strengthen support for the expansion of Sino-Russia trade," said Wang.

China and Russia agreed on a currency swap deal in October 2014, worth 150 billion yuan ($24.5 billion), a move widely viewed as an effort to reduce the dollar's influence in both bilateral and international trade.

The Russian rouble has lost 8.3 percent since the start of the year after a 46 percent slide in 2014.