Foreign non-life insurers will be allowed to do business with Chinese companies from December and are expecting income from China to climb rapidly in 2004.
Until now, foreign non-life insurers have only been allowed to insure foreign customers and a very limited number of domestic companies.
Once these restrictions are lifted as part of China's WTO accession agreement, companies such as American International Underwriters (AIU) expect their China incomes to climb by as much as 50 percent annually
AIU plans to double its staff count to 1,000 and expand its reach to 15 provinces by 2005.