Business

Thursday November 1, 2012

Malaysia's private retirement industry worth RM18b


<B>Ooi:</B> ‘This represents a huge business opportunity and will require a large skilled workforce.’ Ooi: ‘This represents a huge business opportunity and will require a large skilled workforce.’

KUALA LUMPUR: Manulife Asset Management Services Bhd forecasts Malaysia's private retirement industry could be worth about RM18bil while creating 2,200 new jobs.

It said that it expected the private retirement scheme (PRS) to create new jobs and benefit Malaysia via the skill and technology transfers required to launch the private retirement planning industry.

“The new private retirement landscape is expected to create 2,200 new jobs and generate an incremental gross national income of RM2.1bil in the financial services sector,” it said.

Its CEO Edward Ooi said based on the estimated six million employees and two million self-employed adults in Malaysia, “the private retirement industry could potentially be worth some RM18bil”.

“This represents a huge business opportunity and will require a large skilled workforce to serve the demands of the industry. Hence, we will be holding a series of road shows nationwide to share this golden opportunity with potential partners.”

Ooi said as part of its preparation to launch the PRS, Manulife Asset Management Services would recruit and train new talent as well as introduce technology from Manulife Financial's worldwide pension operations at the local level.

He said pension reforms were taking place aggressively in Asean countries to address rapidly-ageing demographics and ever-rising pension costs.

The PRS would require strong skills and a solid technological foundation to run smoothly due to its intense transactional nature. Hence, a simple and efficient product delivery system was very crucial for a successful pension scheme.

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