野村控股：日本退休保障经验及中国私人养老金体系建设问题

我是野村控股执行董事、中国委员会主席饭山俊康。按GDP计算，中国和日本已分别成为世界第二、第三大经济体，在个人金融资产水平方面也处在世界领先地位。因此，两国正面临着同样的挑战，即如何让金融资产发挥作用、促进长期资产建设以及实现投资需求多元化。

今天，我想借鉴日本经验来讨论外资机构在步入老龄化的中国市场中扮演的角色。中国的财富和资产管理市场表现出了广阔的前景。根据招商银行与贝恩公司发布的《2021年中国私人财富报告》，中国高净值人群在过去两年正以平均年增长率15%的速度迅速扩大，目前已达262万人。在野村，我们看到调动个人金融资产基础的巨大潜力，这其中包括了中产阶级。尽管根据日本经验，未来经济中资金流动将有所放缓，但我们认为作为主要可交易个人金融资产的股票将继续增长。另一方面，我们担心如果中国市场继续允许大量资金流入所谓的“金融产品”或投机性房地产交易，个人金融资产将无法转变为创造有利于中国经济良性循环的动力，这将有可能造成资产泡沫或经济滞胀。

我们之所以有这种担忧，是基于日本从上世纪九十年代末直至二十一世纪初出现的不良贷款经历。为了处理当时的金融乱象，日本经历了“大爆炸”式的全面金融改革，并建立了房地产资产证券化市场。这次改革让许多外国金融机构进入日本并积极活跃至今。回首这段经历，外国资产管理公司为日本资产管理行业的发展做出了巨大贡献。首先是建立了全面的管理知识体系，包括了研究、管理、报告及合规。外国公司带来的有形和无形的知识体系帮助发展了日本公募基金市场和基础设施。

另外一个贡献是在产品发展和营销领域。在改革前，银行或券商跨集团提供产品是不可想象的。但是，外国资产管理公司的创新产品及其对分销商的教育和促销活动，再加上监管力度的放松，导致当地零售金融机构的产品种类迅速多样化，并提高了客户服务水平。换句话说，世界级外资资产管理公司的进入带来了良性竞争，提高了行业人员的水平，给投资者带来了巨大的利益。野村很自豪自己一直是发展日本共同基金市场的领导者。得益于金融大变革的法律和监管改革，以及与外资基金公司的竞争合作，我们提升了自己的竞争力，并成长为日本国内最大的共同基金经理和分销商。

通过这次经历，我们相信，中国为进一步发展完整的资产管理行业，有效的做法是实施共同基金市场的全面监管改革、提升中产阶级的资产管理能力，并鼓励外国公司进入，建立健全的竞争和合作环境。

接下来我再谈谈人口老龄化问题，并介绍一下日本在这方面的经验。日本15至64岁之间的适龄劳动人口在1995年达到顶峰，总人口在2008年达到顶峰。因此，日本正面临着人口老龄化和人口减少的挑战。据我了解，中国现在的老龄化速度比日本快，为了缓解人们的担忧，加强社会保障制度，特别是养老金制度的改革，是目前势在必行的事情。

根据日本的经验，有三个关键问题。

第一点是公共和私人养老金计划所扮演的不同角色，确保两者的正确结合是至关重要的。当然，二者最好的结合方式取决于每个国家的具体特点。也就是说，最重要的事是确保公共和私人养老金各自扮演的角色被明确。在老龄化社会国家，向人们承诺大量的公共养老金支付是不现实的。简而言之，公共养老金的作用是为退休人员提供基本收入保障，而任何超出基础保障范围的支付，都应由私人养老金承担。因此，公共养老金计划主要是用来覆盖广泛的人口以确保社会公平。但这并不容易，在日本，覆盖率也是靠日积月累地逐步增加。现在，日本基础养老保障已经覆盖了包括无收入人群的每个人。

第二点，通过各种各样的措施来扩大私人养老金计划。这里的关键是确保有足够的税收措施到位。私人养老金计划的两种类型是固定收益型和固定缴款型。当前的全球趋势是从固定收益型向固定缴款型转变，日本也在朝着这个方向转变。我了解到，中国正在进行个人养老保险制度改革，并推出了固定缴款计划。私人养老金的税收遵循EET模式，即缴费和投资回报是免税的，只有养老金提取发生时才征税。该模式的关键在于保证了养老金计划的长久累积。由于历史原因，日本的固定缴款提款限制很低，养老金投资回报仅享受限时免税，提款时也是部分征税。EET税收模式将有利于中国深化私人养老金体系建立。

第三点是关于国际多元化的重要性。公共养老金储备基金是一个有效的缓冲基金，这些基金最有效的管理方式是在海内外市场进行广泛多样的资产配置。日本的GPIF是世界上最大的公共养老基金，资产管理规模相当于10.6万亿元人民币。它的资产组合结构为国内债券、国内股票、外国债券和外国股票各占25%，该比例与实际资产分布基本匹配。当然，比例分配也并不总是这样，2013年之前，三分之二的投资配置在了日本国内的债券上，之后，才逐渐调整为均匀分散的投资结构。

最近，作为超长期投资者和全球资产持有者，GPIF开始着眼于ESG投资，以推动日本资产管理行业向可持续方向进步。2015年，GPIF成为《负责任投资原则》的签署方，明确了其对ESG投资的积极态度。这促使日本企业和投资者提高了对此类问题的认识。在中国，类似于全国社会保障基金等大型的资产所有者，将在解决碳中和等问题上发挥不可或缺的作用。

私人养老金计划需要以长期化、国际化、多样化的投资为支撑，这需要参与者提升金融认知。在全球范围内，人们逐渐认识到，提高金融知识素养有助于为稳定的社会和经济增长铺平道路。然而，纸上谈兵是不会有所改善的，我们需要从实践中找出路。例如，让公众习惯于通过目标日期基金进行长期多元化投资，为退休积累资产，同时也通过金融教育提高公众的养老保障知识，形成一种旨在提高金融素养的双重循环方法。因此，对中国来说，为社会老龄化做准备，重要的是提高资产管理行业的产品开发能力、为投资者提供包括金融知识在内的信息，以及构建长期化、国际化、多元化的相关专业知识。

我想再次强调，外资金融机构有很多值得新兴市场借鉴的全球经验与专业知识，通过创造一个与国内机构竞争和合作的环境，中国的经济与社会都将受益。以野村东方国际证券为平台，野村集团致力于利用我们的全球专业知识和经验，为中国资本市场和资产管理行业的发展做出贡献。我们期待与政策制定者和市场参与者的合作。

Speech at GAMF 2022

Shanghai Summit

Toshiyasu Iiyama

I am Toshiyasu Iiyama, executive managing director at Nomura Holdings and head of the firm's China Committee. Japan and China are now the world's third and second largest economies by GDP, and are among the world's leaders when it comes to the level of personal financial assets. As such, both countries face the same challenge of putting financial assets to work, promoting long-term asset building and diversifying demand for investments.

Today, I would like to draw on Japan's experiences to discuss the role that foreign financial firms can play in the aging Chinese market. The wealth and asset management businesses in China are very promising. According to the 2021 China Private Wealth Report issued by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Company, China's wealthy population totaled 2.62 million with an average growth rate of 15% over the past two years. At Nomura, we see huge potential in mobilizing the financial asset base of individuals, including the middle class. While flows in the economy may slow going forward, based on Japan's experience, we expect stock in the economy as personal financial assets to continue to grow. On the other hand, we are concerned that if China maintains its current structure of massive inflows of funds into so-called wealth management products or speculative real estate transactions, it will not be able to turn personal financial assets into an engine that creates a virtuous cycle advantageous to the Chinese economy, but instead cause asset bubbles or economic stagnation.

Our concern here is based on Japan's non-performing loan problems in the late nineties and early two thousands. But during that time, Japan also underwent its Big Bang comprehensive financial reforms and established a real estate securitization market. This led to many foreign players entering Japan and some asset managers that joined the market around that time are still active in Japan. Looking back, foreign asset managers made many significant contributions to the development of the asset management industry in Japan. First was the establishment of comprehensive management knowledge including research, administration, reporting and compliance. The tangible and intangible knowledge brought by foreign firms helped develop the mutual fund market and infrastructure.

Another contribution was in the area of product development and marketing. Before the Big Bang, it was unthinkable for banks or brokerages to offer products from companies outside the same group. But the innovative product development by foreign asset managers and their educational and promotional activities for distributors, combined with deregulation, led to swift diversification of product offerings by local retail financial institutions and enhanced customer service. In other words, the entry of world-class foreign asset managers gave rise to healthy competition, boosting the level of people working in the industry and leading to significant benefits for investors. Nomura is proud to have been a leader in developing the mutual fund market in Japan. We boosted our competitiveness and grew as the country's largest mutual fund manager and distributor thanks to the legal and regulatory reforms of the Big Bang and competition and collaboration with foreign players.

Through this experience we believe that to further develop a full asset management industry in China it would be effective to enact comprehensive regulatory reforms of the mutual fund market for enhancing asset management for the middle class and to encourage the entry of foreign players to establish a sound competitive and collaborative environment.

Allow me now to shift focus and touch on Japan's experiences in relation to one of the key topics of the agenda: aging. The working-age population in Japan, people from 15 to 64 years old, peaked in 1995 and the total population peaked in 2008. So we now face the challenges of an aging and declining population. As I understand it, China is now aging at a faster pace than Japan and to alleviate the concerns of the people, enhancing of the social security system, particularly pension system reform, is something that should be started now.

Based on Japan's experience, there are three key issues.

The first point is the separate roles played by public and private pension plans. Ensuring the right combination of both is essential. The best combination, of course, depends on the specific characteristics of each country. That said, the most important thing is to ensure that the roles of public and private pension are made clear. In countries with an ageing society, it is not practical to promise the people large public pension payments. Put simply, the role of public pensions is to guarantee certain income for people in retirement, while anything above and beyond that to have a fulfilling life should be covered by private pensions. In such cases, it is critical that public pension plans cover a broad section of the population to ensure social equality. This is not easy and in Japan we had to gradually increase coverage in phases. Now it covers everyone, even people with no income.

Turning to my second point, there is a diverse range of measures that can be used to expand private pension plans. The key here is to ensure there are sufficient tax measures in place. The two types of private pension plans are defined benefit and defined contribution. The current global trend is to shift away from defined benefit to defined contribution and Japan is also moving in this direction. I am aware that China is reforming its individual pension system and has also introduced defined contribution plans. Tax for private pension plans follows an EET scheme whereby contributions and returns on investment are tax exempt (EE) but withdrawals are taxable (T). It is key that this is implemented on a permanent basis and sufficiently established. For historical reasons, defined contribution withdrawal limits in Japan are low, the tax exemptions on investment returns are temporary and tax on withdrawals is partial. As China looks to further establish private pension plans, an EET tax system would be beneficial.

Lastly, my third point on the importance of international diversification. Public pension reserve funds are effective as a buffer fund and management of these funds is most effective when done through investing in a wide range of assets both domestic and international. Japan's GPIF is the world's largest public pension fund with equivalent of RMB 10.6 trillion of assets under management. Its policy asset mix is allocated 25% each to domestic bonds, domestic equities, foreign bonds and foreign equities, and its actual asset allocation follows a similar distribution. The fund's allocation was not always like this. Before 2013, two-thirds of its investments was in domestic bonds. Diversification was then done gradually.

Recently, as an ultra-long-term investor and a universal owner, GPIF carries out ESG investments and has been driving initiatives in Japan's asset management industry. In 2015, GPIF became a signatory of the Principles for Responsible Investing, clarifying its proactive stance towards ESG investing. This acted as a catalyst for Japanese companies and investors to raise their awareness of such issues. In China, the activities of large-scale asset owners such as the National Social Security Fund will play an integral role in addressing issues like achieving carbon neutrality.

Long-term investing and international diversification is needed for private pension plans and this requires improved financial literacy. Globally, it is becoming recognized that boosting financial literacy can help pave the way for stable social and economic growth. However, won't improve by just talking about it. It requires both knowledge and practice. For example, one idea is to get people used to long-term diversified investing via target date funds to build assets for retirement, while also improving knowledge through financial education, resulting in a dual circulation approach that aims to boost financial literacy. So for China to prepare for the aging of society it is critical to increase product development capabilities in the asset management industry, provide investors with information including financial literacy, and develop asset management and business administration expertise for long-term and internationally diversified asset management.

Once again. Let me say that there is much to learn from the global experience and expertise of foreign financial institutions and by creating a competitive and collaborative environment with domestic players, the Chinese economy and society as a whole can benefit. Through Nomura Orient International Securities, Nomura Group is committed to leveraging our global expertise and experience to contribute to the development of China's capital markets and asset management industry. We look forward to working together with policymakers and market participants.

全球财富管理论坛

全球财富管理论坛是在金融开放背景下，为顺应全球资产管理行业发展与中国资产管理行业转型需求，由清华大学经济管理学院、孙冶方经济科学基金会、中国财富管理50人论坛联合发起成立的一个国际性交流平台组织，论坛旨在构建一个汇聚全球资产拥有者和管理者、监管部门和市场代表的长期对话沟通平台，为国内外资产管理机构搭建交流与合作的桥梁。