China Postal Group (CPG) plans to set up an insurance company, which will be the country’s fi rst insurer with sole investment from the postal sector, Wu Dingfu, chairman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), said. Wu said the commission is currently dealing with the application submitted by the CPG for establishing an insurance company.

China’s postal sector, boasting 36,000 outlets nationwide, simply serves as the sales agent of insurance products for the moment, but was urged to explore further cooperation with the insurance sector.

Statistics show that nearly 14 percent of the country’s insurance agents come from the postal sector by the end of March.

The CPG has earlier made a step toward the fi nancial reform in establishing the China Postal Savings Bank with total registered capital of 20 billion yuan (US$2.6 billion), which becomes the country’s fi fth largest bank.