(Economic Watch) How do the three pillars of the personal pension system play a game of chess together?
China News Agency, Beijing, April 21, Question: How do the three pillars of the personal pension system play a game of chess together?
Author Liu Wenwen
With the deepening of aging, the voice of improving the old-age insurance system is gradually rising.
The "Opinions on Promoting the Development of Individual Pensions" issued by the General Office of the State Council of China was officially released on the 21st, clarifying the basic institutional framework of the third pillar pension insurance.
What is the significance of the introduction of the personal pension system for improving the multi-level and multi-pillar pension system?
What aspects should be paid attention to in the follow-up implementation process?
Shortcomings need to be filled
In 1991, the "Decision of the State Council on the Reform of the Pension Insurance System for Enterprise Employees" issued by the State Council of China proposed to gradually establish a system combining basic pension insurance with enterprise supplementary pension insurance and individual savings pension insurance for employees, and to change the pension insurance system entirely from the state. , The method of contracting by the enterprise shall implement the joint burden of the state, the enterprise and the individual.
The idea of a three-pillar pension system developed from this.
The so-called three-pillar framework, the first pillar is basic pension insurance, including basic pension insurance for urban employees and urban and rural residents; the second pillar is enterprise annuity for enterprises and occupational annuities for government departments and institutions; the third pillar is mainly It is a variety of pension savings voluntarily carried out by individuals, including personal pensions.
However, the current development of the three pillars of China's pension insurance is uneven.
Wei Chenyang, director of the China Insurance and Pension Research Center of the National Institute of Financial Research of Tsinghua University, pointed out to a reporter from China News Agency that compared with developed countries, China's first and second pillars are larger in scale, while the development of the third pillar has been in its infancy for a long time.
"The development of the third pillar is not as good as that of the second pillar, and the second pillar is far inferior to the first pillar." Zheng Bingwen, director of the World Social Security Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said frankly in an interview with a reporter from China News Agency, "For more than 30 years, we have not really established The multi-level and multi-pillar old-age insurance system is mainly played by the first pillar, and the second pillar covers only 27 million people. In May 2018, the third-pillar old-age insurance began to be piloted, and only 40,000 people have participated in the insurance in the past four years. There are many people, and the premium income is less than 600 million yuan."
In the context of deepening aging and slowing economic growth, it is imminent to make up for the shortcomings of the third pillar.
Policy releases positive signals
The "Opinions" released this time clarified the basic institutional framework of China's third-pillar pension insurance and released positive signals, which are of great significance for continuing to promote the development of the multi-level pension insurance system and truly implement the three-pillar pension system.
Wei Chenyang's analysis pointed out that due to the huge scale of the first pillar, the high dependence on the basic old-age insurance system allocated by the state finance will bring a huge burden to the state finance.
To make up for the shortcomings and develop the third pillar will undoubtedly effectively alleviate the financial pressure, which is the important significance of the current introduction of the personal pension system.
At present, the construction of the third pillar is entering the fast lane, and the personal pension market space is expected to be further opened.
"It is foreseeable that once the personal pension system of 1.4 billion people is implemented, takes root, blossoms and bears fruit, it will form a huge accumulation of astronomical figures." said Dong Dengxin, director of the Institute of Finance and Securities at Wuhan University of Science and Technology.
What issues should be paid attention to in actual implementation?
Zheng Bingwen pointed out that since the beginning of the 21st century, foreign developed countries began to establish the third pillar, and it has been 20 years of experience now.
Therefore, the implementation of the personal pension system should first actively learn from the best international experience.
In addition, it is necessary to summarize the experience of past pilot projects and focus on improving the degree of institutional facilitation.
In Wei Chenyang's view, there are four aspects to focus on:
First, increase tax incentives.
From the fiscal policy, tax incentives are used to encourage people to put some money into tax-deferred pension accounts to increase their enthusiasm for insurance.
Second, enhance product richness.
At present, the vast majority of domestic products are short-term financial management, which rarely involve long-term planning, which is difficult to meet the diverse needs of the people, which greatly limits the comprehensive development of personal pensions.
Third, enhance the innovation of financial institutions themselves to reflect differentiation.
Banks, brokerages, funds and other financial institutions are involved in pension management, but various institutions have not yet formed their own characteristics and lack differences.
Fourth, increase long-term investment in elderly education.
At present, the domestic public still lacks awareness of the risks of pensions and pursues short-term returns excessively, which hinders the long-term development of personal pensions.
"From personal education to national tax incentives, to the richness of products and the differentiation of financial institutions' service innovations, when a series of comprehensive measures are truly implemented, the personal pension system is expected to be rolled out on a large scale, with multiple levels and multiple pillars. The old-age insurance system is also expected to be truly implemented." Wei Chenyang said.
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