Manulife enters Cambodia’s burgeoning insurance market
Canadian insurance and financial services company Manulife Financial officially launched its Cambodian country office on June 28, one of several new players seeking to enter one of Southeast Asia’s still-untapped markets. Britain’s No.1 insurer Prudential said last week it had approval from the Cambodian government to open a wholly foreign-owned life insurance operation. Manulife, the world’s fourth-largest life insurer, will make an initial investment of US$7 million in Cambodia and plans on an additional US$20 million investment over the next five years. The Cambodian office now has 40 employees, but plans to add up to 300 agents by the end of 2012 and could boost that to 1,000 in two to three years. The company, soon to celebrate its 125th birthday, one relied heavily on its US and Canadian operations, but now derives a third of its sales from Asia. To get a better idea of what brought Manulife to the Kingdom, Economics Today approached David Wong, senior vice-president and chairman of Manulife (Cambodia) PLC. …
