Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance plans to invest more than 40bn yen ($334m) in foreign bonds and stocks, reducing further its exposure to domestic equities in this financial year.
This is about the same level of investment in foreign assets as in the fiscal year which ended last month.
Hiroaki Hara, manager of investment planning at Mitsui Sumitomo, one of Japan's largest property and casualty insurers, told Reuters that Japanese government bonds still make up the largest part of Mitsui Sumitomo's assets, with foreign currency-denominated stocks and bonds in developed markets accounting for the bulk of its risk assets.
"It's getting more and more difficult to get returns amid low liquidity in the bond market," Hara said. "But we are not going to take risks just because we want to chase high returns."
