_Sources_ : Insurance sector assets data sourced from national financial authorities; CEMA (for WAEMU countries and Cameroon); Axco country reports; EIU 2006a (for South Africa).

_Note_ : Total insurance sector assets are underestimated for some countries because national authorities do not compile timely data covering all companies (in some cases due to inadequate regulation of the sector). Data breakdown not available for Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Malaysia.

a. Chilean authorities were unable to specify the insurance sector’s asset allocation specifically in infrastructure sectors but given that corporate bonds issued for financing infrastructure development as a share of total is 48 percent and domestically issued equity issued by firms in infrastructure sectors accounts for 27 percent of total market cap, one can roughly estimate that up to $4 billion of pension fund asset holdings were in corporate bonds issued by companies/projects in infrastructure sectors; and around $263 million can be estimated as holdings in domestically issued equity issued by infrastructure companies/projects.

— = Not available.

The portfolio breakdown of pension system assets varies among the focus countries, although certain patterns are discernable based on level of financial sector development and the extent to which state-run fund(s) predominate (table 4.3). In a number of countries, investment practices of pension funds and insurance companies continue to favor largely short-term government securities, bank deposits, and real estate, largely due to a lack of investment alternatives. In a number of countries with underdeveloped financial sectors, asset allocation of pension system assets is characterized by heavy investment of assets in real estate and other large illiquid assets. This varies considerably among the pension systems for which data are available, from no holdings in real estate assets by Namibia’s pension system to 26 percent of the total investment by Zambia’s pension scheme.

**Table 4.3 Allocation of national pension system assets by investment vehicle**

Year-end 2006 or most recent available; US$ millions

|Country|Total pension assets<br>(US$ millions)|Direct investment in<br>infrastructure projects|Cash and deposits|Government securities|Corp. bonds issued by<br>infrastructure sector<br>firms|Other corp. bonds|Loans|Equities issued by<br>infrastructure sector<br>firms|Other equity issues|Real estate|Other domestic<br>securities|Foreign assets (where<br>specified)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Cape Verde|170||7|76|2||0.7|11|3|0.5|||
|Ethiopia|—||35|65|||||||||
|Ghana|1,077||36|0.2|0||22|0|30|11|1||
|Kenya|1,770||3|42||4|||24|6|21||
|Madagascar|62||0|90|0||0|0|4|6|0.4||
|Malawi|—|||20|||11||48|21|||
|Namibia|3,312||11|16|Unsp.|0.1|2||58|0|||
|Niger|79||8||||92||||||
|Nigeria|3,508||5|27||0.3|||33|7|21|6|
|South Africa|80,202||6|12|||0||33|1|48||
|Tanzania|578|0.1|11|24||7|16||17|23|2||
|Uganda|471||26|48|1.8||0|Unsp.|5|17|3||
|Zambia|314||8|9|||||24|26|32||
|Chile|88,293||17|13||8|||17|0|9|32|
|Malaysia|69,659|||38|||||19|0.6|43||

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