Dialogue with Ping An Road Hao Yang: Filter short-term fluctuations and confidently allocate to equity assets; in the future, increase investment in the "hard technology" sector.

Caixin News March 30 report (Reporter Li Ting) As publicly listed insurance companies gradually release their 2025 annual reports, one keyword keeps coming up: hard technology.

The latest annual report data shows that by the end of 2025, China Ping An’s proportion of equity investment volume rose from 11% in 2024 to 20%. The scale of equity investments increased significantly, with investment areas focusing on high-dividend stocks and technology growth stocks. China Life, China Taiping, and other insurance companies also stated clearly in their 2025 annual reports that they are actively laying out areas related to new productive forces.

“Hard technology has already become a certainty in the future investment of insurance funds.” Several executives in charge of investment business of insurance companies told Caixin News reporters. Consistent with the above view, recently Caixin News reporter interviewed Lu Haoyang, deputy chief investment officer of China Ping An. He also clearly said, “Hard technology is definitely an area for Ping An’s subsequent key investment and layout.”

Caixin News: How do you view the recent volatility in the capital markets? Will it affect the allocation pace?
Lu Haoyang: Filter out short-term volatility and look at the long term—we will firmly allocate to equity-type assets.

From the 2025 performance of the listed insurance companies, it can be seen that capital market volatility will be reflected quickly in earnings. This is a challenge facing insurance companies, which have long favored stability. At earnings briefing sessions, executives of multiple insurance companies said that they would guide the market to look at a company’s profit over a longer cycle.

Capital market volatility may trigger profit volatility in financial statements. Then, in the first quarter of 2026, when volatility in capital markets such as the A-share market increases, will it affect the investment rhythm of insurance funds in 2026?

Lu Haoyang admitted that the market indeed pays close attention to this issue, but for insurance funds, it is certainly a matter of the long term. “Because insurance funds are large in scale, the nature of the funds determines that insurance funds have a long duration—which means insurance institutions must ‘look longer and act longer’.”

“Ping An will firmly allocate to equities.” Lu Haoyang said. Regarding how to handle short-term volatility, Lu Haoyang provided solutions: first, adjust the structure to better adapt to the short-term market, such as by allocating to high-dividend stocks. “Inherently, this type of stock has lower volatility, and with stable cash-flow support for dividends, you can find certainty amid volatility.” Second, for growth areas with policy support and certain growth, “for these growth-oriented stocks, you can filter out short-term volatility and be even bolder in allocating.”

Caixin News: What areas involve policy support and certainty in growth? Lu Haoyang: Hard technology, and industries related to new productive forces, such as new productive forces—these industries are the key directions for future focus.

In the interview, Lu Haoyang repeatedly emphasized emerging industries encouraged by national policies, and this is also the area of key focus for insurance funds: “When insurance funds invest, they need to ‘resonate in sync’ with the country’s policies.”

During this year’s Two Sessions, the National Development and Reform Commission clearly stated that China will focus on building six major emerging pillar industries and six future industries. The six major emerging pillar industries include integrated circuits, aerospace, biopharmaceuticals, the low-altitude economy, new energy storage, and intelligent robotics; the six major future industries include quantum technology, bio-manufacturing, green hydrogen energy and nuclear fusion energy, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, and 6G. These fields are all important areas for strengthening China’s “hard technology” capabilities.

These areas are also precisely the direction in which insurance funds are gradually increasing investment. At the latest earnings briefing, China Ping An’s President and Co-CEO, Xie Yonglin, already stated clearly that insurance capital, as patient capital and long-term capital, is actively laying out the six emerging pillar industries and six future industries, and is actively supporting the development of China’s new productive forces. “Ping An’s investment has already covered cutting-edge areas such as GPUs, robots, the next generation of semiconductors, and brain-computer interfaces.”

In response, Lu Haoyang also said that Ping An actively supports technological innovation through equity and debt instruments, participating in investments in areas such as the country’s “choke-point” technology research and strategic emerging industries. “Let me give an example from a more specific track. For major national semiconductor industries, Ping An’s investment scale has already exceeded RMB 10 billion. This is only a sub-industry; for other larger strategic emerging industries, the investment scale will be even greater.”

According to data obtained by Caixin News reporters, by the end of 2025, Ping An invested RMB 11.5 billion in major national semiconductor industries, supporting independent development of domestic chip industries; in cooperation with excellent private fund managers, through equity investments it invested more than RMB 10 billion in areas such as AI, semiconductors, robotics, and biopharmaceuticals, fully supporting the development of new productive forces enterprises.

Caixin News: Are there any difficulties or bottlenecks in investing in the “hard technology” sector now? Lu Haoyang: Equity investments in non-listed companies consume more capital; we expect policy optimization to encourage insurance capital to make even stronger efforts to lay out

Increasing investment in “hard technology” is a certainty direction for insurance funds’ investment today and in the future. Then, are there still any difficulties or bottlenecks for insurance funds during the investment process?

“Overall, with policy support across the board, investing in hard technology is relatively smooth.” Lu Haoyang said.

However, he also admitted that when making equity investments in non-listed hard technology companies, there are still situations where the solvency risk factor remains relatively high—“which means it consumes a fairly large amount of capital for insurance companies.”

Taken together, in recent years, regulators have repeatedly optimized policies related to solvency. In 2023, regulators issued the “Notice on Optimizing Insurance Company Solvency Regulatory Standards.” Among them, for insurance companies investing in constituent stocks of the CSI 300 Index, the risk factor was adjusted from 0.35 to 0.3; for investments in ordinary stocks listed on the STAR Market, the risk factor was adjusted from 0.45 to 0.4.

In 2025, regulators optimized the policies again and issued the “Notice on Adjusting Risk Factors for Relevant Business of Insurance Companies.” The risk factors for CSI 300 Index constituent stocks and the CSI A-share Dividend Low Volatility 100 Index constituent stocks held for more than three years were lowered from 0.3 to 0.27; the risk factor for ordinary stocks listed on the STAR Market held for more than two years was lowered from 0.4 to 0.36.

But these policy optimizations are aimed at listed companies. For equity investment in non-listed strategic emerging industries by insurance companies, the risk factor has always remained at 0.4.

Lu Haoyang said that currently both regulators and insurance institutions are working to jointly conduct research, and they hope that when insurance funds support the country’s key areas and new productive forces, there can be some discount in risk measurement, so that insurance funds can increase efforts to lay out “hard technology.”

“In addition, investing in hard technology also raises requirements for insurance funds themselves. Strategic emerging industries and industries related to new productive forces have very high requirements for insurance companies’ investment teams’ investment capability, post-investment management capability, risk management capability, and more. We need to continuously optimize our investment teams and enhance these capabilities.” Lu Haoyang revealed, “For a long period of time in the future, Ping An will definitely increase its layout of hard technology.”

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