Dai-ichi Life eyes Cambodian market

Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co. is expanding into the Cambodian market, which will make it the first Japanese life insurer to do business in the Southeast Asian country, informed sources said to The Japan Times.

The insurer plans to open a representative office in Phnom Penh by the end of July, with the aim of starting to sell insurance products by the fiscal year ending in March 2018 at the earliest, according to the sources.

In Southeast Asia, the company is already operating in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.

In recent years, major Japanese life insurers have been expanding overseas where they have been buying up competitors. Two reasons for the outward expansion are Japan’s aging society, which means there is limited growth potential at home and the Bank of Japan’s negative interest rate policy.