Asia

ISRAEL - Pension reforms have had a positive effect on the Israeli capital market, according to one of the state's leading investment houses.

JAPAN -The DIAM Group has beaten Barclays Global Investors (BGI) to become the largest Japanese pension fund manager.

INDIA - Calls have been made for greater liberalisation of the country's pensions industry.

DUBAI - Schroders has announced plans to open an office in Dubai with view to doubling assets under management from Middle Eastern clients in the next three to four years.

JAPAN - The government has endorsed reform bills to integrate the civil servants' pension programme with the private sector workers' scheme.

INDIA - The Union cabinet has confimed it will ask the Pension Fund Regulatory & Development Authority (PFRDA) to appoint fund managers to control the R15bn (US$340m) collected under the new pension scheme (NPS).

JAPAN - Noboru Terada joins MSCI Barra as a senior advisor from the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund.

JAPAN/CHINA - Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) announced its intention to invest new money worth JPY11.8trn (US$100m) at the start of the new financial year.

PAKISTAN - The Pakistani prime minister Shaukat Aziz has come out in support of Credit Suisse, which announced plans to launch operations in the country.

SOUTH KOREA - South Korea's US$202bn National Pension Fund is to commission foreign asset managers to increase its domestic and overseas equity allocation, as bonds fall out of favour.