Dear media friends, good morning. I'd like to welcome you to join us for The 2022 Interim Aesult announcement of The Ping An Group. I'm the Board Secretary. My name is Sheng Ruisheng. I'm going to host this result release. We're going to have the offline meeting room plus the live streaming along with teleconferencing for this meeting. Today, we have our Chairman, Mr. Ma Mingzhe, and President and Co-CEO, Mr. Xie Yonglin, and Co-CEO Jessica Tan, and also Co-CEO and CFO, Jason Yao , as well as the Chief Investment Officer, Mr. Benjamin Deng, to join us for this meeting. First of all, we're going to have Jason Yao to walk us through the performance review, and then we have the management team to respond to the questions. Jason Yao , please.
Distinguished friends from the media, good morning. Welcome to join us for the 2022 interim result announcement of Ping An Group. Thanks for your long-term support and trust to Ping An Group. Coming next, please allow me to walk you through the performance of 2022, H1. Please go to page 5. In the first half of 2022, the world economic landscape is pretty challenging and the COVID-19 continue to further spread. The world economic growth been facing a lot of uncertainties, but due to our integrated finance model and the technological empowerment, the operating profit grow by 4.2% on YOY basis. Among which, the L&H operating profit grow by 80%, and the annualized operating ROE grow by 20.4%. We also pay much attention to the shareholder dividend.
You see that the interim dividend grow by 4.5% on YOY basis, which also shows our confidence over the company's future growth. On slide six, we show you the operating profit contribution by different business lines. In H1 of this year, even if we're facing some short-term challenges, but the operating profit attributable to the parent company grow by 4.3%, mainly because of the L&H and the banking business growth. Please go to page seven. You know that in H1 of 2022, due to the growth of the operating variance, the L&H operating profit attributable to the shareholder of the company grow by 80% on YOY basis. The reason is because the growth of the operating variance is due to the actual claim payment was low due to COVID-19 reason, and the P&C ratio continued to be improved.
On slide eight, it also shows you the new value, new business value contribution by different channel. In H1 of this year, due to the COVID-19 reason, consumer-led leisure consumption of the long-term protection product, and along with the COVID-19 reason and the offline business being somewhat impacted, the L&H NBV dropped by 28.5% on YOY basis. Also by the end of last year, we also adjusted the valuation assumption. Excluding the valuation assumption, the NBV of H1 of 2022 decreased, has been narrowed down to 20%. So you know that even if in such a way, we're still very confident over the life insurance development in China. We continue with the life insurance reform and hope that we will be able to further recover our growth in the near future. Please go to slide nine.
In H1 of this year, L&H, you see that the annualized operating ROEV reached 30.2%. We adopt the very conservative risk discount rate to 11%. On slide 10, it shows you the interim dividend ratio, and we attach great importance to the shareholder return and we pay an interim cash dividend of RMB 0.92 per share and improved by 4.5% on the YOY basis. Also it's in line with our 4.3% growth of the operating profit. On the right side, it also shows you the free cash of the parent company remaining reasonable and healthy. On slide 11, it also shows you very strong solvency performance of the company in H1 of this year.
With the regulatory requirement under C-ROSS phase two rules, our solvency margin ratio comfortably above the regulatory requirement, especially for our life insurance product, the core solvency margin ratio is 137.6%. Also the core solvency margin ratio of the P&C is around 172.7%, which doubles the requirement made by the government. Coming next, let's talk about the investment portfolio of insurance funds. It's been growing very robustly. Well, regarding the asset allocation, we are trying to invest more in the bonds with a long duration and low risks in order to further integrate the duration of the assets and also to further take care of the duration gap for the assets and liability. On slide 30, it also shows you the debt scheme and the debt wealth management product.
It accounted for 11% of the total investment and the nominal yield is 5.2%. The remaining maturity is 3.8 years. Please go to slide 40. It also shows people the insurance funds investment and the returns. You know that we don't have any credit default in H1 of this year. Why the comprehensive total investment yield was down compared with last year? The reason is because of the stock market fluctuations and the volatilities. Still, the annualized net investment yield is 3.9%, 0.1% higher on YOY basis. We'd like to suggest investors to pay attention to the ride through the cycle long-term returns. You can see our average net investment yield and average total investment yield are all 5.3%, which is higher than the long-run investment return assumption of 5%.
On Slide 15, it also shows you our ESG performance. Ping An contribute our power to the low carbon economic development. Ping An is committed in leading ESG practice in China, continue to deliver positive value to the society. We also continue to communicate with outside regarding our ESG performance and which being highly recognized. MSCI has already provided the BBB rating to Ping An, which means that our ESG work has been taking the leadership in the insurance industry in China. Slide 16, showing you the award and honors of the company. With our stable business growth, now we're ranking as 25th in the Fortune Global 500 and also ranking at the 4th of the international financial institution. Just now, I show you all the financials of our performance. Coming next, we're going to kick off the Q&A session. Thank you.
Okay, great. Thanks for Jason Yao. Coming next, let's get into the Q&A session. Our management team will help to respond to the questions from the friends of the media. If you have any questions, you can raise your questions offline and online. We're going to take turns. One speaker being allowed for each time. Please name yourself and the organization you represent. Due to the time reason, no more than two questions being allowed for each speaker. Now let's welcome the first question from the offline meeting. Let's welcome this lady. Thank you.
Thanks to the management team. My name is Tan Jimmy from Southern Daily. I have two questions. The first question, how are you going to comment on the overall performance of Ping An Group as a whole?
With the backdrop, what are those challenges we're going to face in H2 of this year? How are you going to see the overall performance of 2022 with impact of COVID-19? And the second question is regarding the life insurance reform. The life insurance reform has been gone for quite a long time. What would be the milestone achievements being made? And management team said 2022 would be the final year for life insurance reform. Are we going to complete the reform within this year? Thank you
The first question, let me answer the first question. How should we comment on the performance of H1 of this year? You know that with such a challenging macroeconomy and we still be able to grow our business robustly, I think it's not easy to be done.
At least you know that for us, we are still recognize the hard efforts being made by the team in delivering the satisfying scorecard. I can say that, regarding our performance, I have three keywords to share with you. The first one is robust growth. Yes, indeed, in H1 of this year, you see that internal and external macro-economic picture and global trends, COVID-19, geopolitical conflicts, and even the Russo-Ukrainian War, inflation and, U.S. exchange rates being further picking up and interest rates being further floating up. With so many complex external and internal factors, and well, for Ping An Group, we're still being able to grow our operating profit and our financial net profit with a positive number. This is not easily to be achieved.
You can also see that in our integrated finance model, our business line, including the life insurance and P&C, are all seeing very positive growth. Regarding our customer operation, our integrated finance customer number, contract per customer, and profit per customer also grow robustly. This is the first keyword that is robust growth. The second keyword is continuously return. The continuous return is also a commitment we honor to our shareholders. We continue to improve the dividend payout ratio to our shareholders, especially from the past one decade, we were improving our dividend, and it was growing by 4.5% on YOY basis, which is higher than the operating profit growth, which is only 4.3%, which also shows our confidence for the future growth. The third keyword is reform and innovation or deepening the reform.
The life insurance reform is being further and steadily promoted on the channel perspective. We are also trying to build our healthcare ecosystem to be a very good solution provider in the market. All those projects are on the right track. Regarding what would be the outlook for H2 of this year, still you see that there are a lot of uncertainties in and outside China. The COVID-19 somewhat has been well-contained. Still there are some sporadic relapses in different cities of China, which will lead to the discontinuity of the business expansion in the offline channel. Some clients, they probably have a flatter demand, which will to some extent challenge our business growth. You know that, for Ping An Group, we'd like to stick to the integrated finance plus the healthcare dual-wheel strategy to grab the opportunity from the healthcare industry.
Well, for the group itself, we are trying very hard to stabilize the growth, to further reduce the cost, improve the efficiency, and reduce expenses. In this way, we'll be able to make sure that the overall performance of 2022 would be a satisfying one.
I'd like to take the question about the reform of health insurance. As to the outcome, we're satisfied. While we're evaluating our results, first of all, look at the channel, look at the product as well as the performance. Now, in terms of the channels, we have four channels. Agent channels, on the average, the productivity per agent and income per agent have been growing by 27% and 30% respectively year-on-year. We don't wanna ask for quantity only, but also quality. So that's for agent channels. Second, we also have three other channels that are unique to Ping An, and they are contributing proportion from only 9%, right now it's 13% putting together, especially our bancassurance as well as the community grid. They're having 100% a college level degree.
Some of them even graduated from famous universities. For our wealth private wealth advisors, they are having very nice personal background. I think for our four channels, they are improving on quality as well as on quantity. Second focus of the reform is the product. We talk about the protection as well as the savings as well as asset in value and increase. We're talking about insurance plus elderly care, as well as insurance and health. You see about 46% of new policyholders are coming out from the insurance and health, as well as insurance and elderly care. These clients of ours, on average, the premium underwriting premium as well as upselling ratios are having higher than average performances.
For instance, for those who are using our healthcare services are registering 3.5 times higher upselling ratios than normal. The third point here I wanna talk about is the performance. The incremental value for performance is you see that we have launched our reform about 18 months ago, and you see we have positive increase already registered, and operating profit had increased by 18% year-on-year, as well as persistency ratio keep on increasing. You see that we had ROE of 35.8%, so we're happy about that as well. Going into the future, I believe that according to our plan, we'll be able to complete the rest of 35% of the business units that we have towards the end of the year.
We will continue to reform and optimize our businesses gradually in a time span of 18 months, and we will try to consolidate the bases and grow from better and better.
Okay, now we will take questions from online participants. Please press star one if you have any questions to ask. Thank you. First question is coming from Peggy. Dear management, this is Peggy from Nikkei. The first question is that as the biggest shareholder of HSBC, we will continue to ask them to split their Asian businesses, and we will ask for a seat at the board. Second is that after the splitting of, are you going to say anything to the public as to HSBC? What is your take on the future dividend policies for HSBC as well?
This is Benjamin Deng, the Chief Investment Officer. I'll take this question. Just as we explained before, as for HSBC, we are one of the shareholders. As for any efforts that helps with the performance improvement as well as value and efficiencies, we remain an open and supportive attitude. Meaning that, as a long-term partner, we wish them to grow from better to better. We are in a supportive view as to any efforts that might help with improving their performances and value. Thank you.
Next question comes from offline. This is China Securities Daily, and I have two questions for the management. First is your investment yields for the first half. My question for you is how do you evaluate your performance in terms of investment in the first half?
How about your strategy going forward into the second half? The next question is, your exposure to real estate market. My question for you is, for your trust and also for your insurance fund, your total risk exposure to real estate market, and how are you going to respond to the lingering risk in the property market?
For our first half performance of investment, we're happy because, given the external turbulences and uncertainties, we saw the pandemic flaring up. We got uncertainties around the geopolitical tensions. We have also seen corrections in the stock market and capital market. Just as my colleague pointed out, we have annualized net yields for investment of 3.9%.
This is a result as a consequence of our allocations for long-term investment, and we also have achieved some dividends from our funds. I think under this uncertainty in external environment, we're able to get some yields that are coming from higher level of certainties. Annualized total yields and shared number seems to be decreasing 3.5% down to 3.1% year-over-year basis. We have to take into account of the accounting method, which is a total investment yield in the past 10 years was 5.7%. This comprehensive investment yields are accounting for some items that are not usually in the regular accounting methods. I can give you some example.
You see that our allocation of investment, as an olive structure, we had a significant allocation to long-term funds, for instance, the debts. For instance, central government as well as local government debts. These are reliable and can help us to ride through the ups and downs of cycles. That's the first part. Second part is that, we have been allocating some growth oriented risk assets, for instance, equity and real estate as well as PE. In the risk type of allocations, we have been investing heavily on dividend type of allocations. We also have some risk-based or some more aggressive type of investment style, so that we have a balanced and reliable allocation strategy for our investments.
For the comprehensive investment yields analyzed level will look even better if you look at CSI 300 or Hang Seng Index. For the first half of the year, our equity-based investment, including value investment as well as A-share investment or proactive fund, we have been outperforming the A-share market as a whole. That's another point I wanna make. We are also quite diversified in terms of risk. We also have two channels to source the best portfolio manager to help us identify the right candidates for investment as well as the right risk check for investment areas. You see that we have very significant alpha being driven out of this balanced and diversified strategy.
If you were to ask me whether or not we have hit our target for yields, and my answer is no. I believe that we have done our best under today's external environment. We should also point out that as a long-term investor, insurance is something that can ride through the ups and downs and several rounds of cycles for the longer term. We are not talking about one year or two years. We're talking about a decade or even three decades. Given this prerequisite, what we are looking for is not only the yields for the first two or one or two years. Our investment is pretty much in line with the macro economy. Going forward, we will go better and better. Of course, there will be corrections taking place every now and then.
We'll be able to generate value. For the longer term, we'll be providing expected return for the policyholders. Probably we will not be number one or number two in the short term. For the longer term, like for one decade or three decades, we'll be outperforming others. We'll continue our effort into the second half of the year, and hopefully we'll be able to maintain a good performance despite the uncertainties around the short term. This is from an investment perspective. For the second half of the year, China's macro economy was undergoing some uncertainties and ups and downs for the first half. For China's macro economy for the longer term, we do have the right confidence that it would grow even better.
In those circumstances, you see that all sectors of China's economy are trying to revive, and also to recover, as strong as possible and as soon as possible, despite some disruptions from the COVID-19. I believe that we'll have the right confidence for the macro economy and for the longer term. Our investment yields will be able to go back to the normal level and give you the right, you know, performances for the longer term. Another question is about property market. Well, yes, for property market, that is what we will say. I can give you a short answer first. That is that all of the risks are well under control. We would love to talk about the role of property in the macro economy.
It is a comprehensive reflection of how the macro economy looks like. As long as we stick with the principle, that is, the property is for living, not for speculation, I believe that our property market in China will have a bright future. I believe that this is the fundamental philosophy that we stick with. As to our own allocation in property market, all of the risks are well under control. For instance, just as Mr. Xie had said, the exposure of the Ping An Bank, the non-performing ratio is much better than the industry average. We have been adopting a prudent attitude towards risking our assets in property market. Out of our total allocation, you see that our 15%.
50% of them are real assets. For instance, the assets that can drive long-term and reliable cash flow out of rentals, and they are able to cater for our needs in terms of liability. For the longer term, campuses, industry campuses, data center, as well as logistics facilities and infrastructures, we will remain highly interested or even increase our allocations for high-quality real estate assets. If something ever keeps me up at night, is that there's been quite high level of liquidity in the market, and everybody seems to be seeking for high-quality real estate assets. We have been trying our very best to seek those good projects and candidates. They have very nice cash flow.
They have, they'll be able to enjoy long-term durability, then give us higher level of certainties. The rest 50%, you know, debt scheme-based, as well as equity-based, 50% to 50%. We have very stringent risk management. We have AAA covering over 70 or 90%. We also have an internal evaluation system, which is much more stringent than external evaluation.
In this way, you can see our credit risk over the debt is manageable, where at the same time you can also see that around 60% of the stock-based investment are being done in the equity-based investment on a single project. From the nature perspective, it's still be a project with healthy cash flow. For example, we have limited investment in the stock market, in the secondary market. It's also be scattered, which will not pose any systematic risks for us. Generally speaking, you can see that for Ping An Group, we are actually making sure the risks is fully manageable to actually describe our risk exposure to the property market, where at the same time, we believe that Chinese economy is also recovering and we're going to climbing up. The future is still bright. Thank you.
Let's give the opportunity to our online audience to raise a question. Next question. Can have Zach Tintosh, please.
Hello, management team. I also have a question. Goes for Chairman Ma. How are you going to comment on your talk to HSBC regarding the spin-off plan in the non-public occasion. If it's going to be the spin-off of the Asia business of the HSBC, what's your comment on that. If HSBC don't think a spin-off would be a good way, as a major shareholder, are you going to decrease your holding of the shares of HSBC. You also mentioned you're going to downsize the operating expenses.
You know that, when the economy is actually gloomy and the economic growth being further slowed down, so do you believe that you are going to make less investment compared with the previous years? We have already answered the question regarding HSBC. We'll just take the next question. Thank you. Jason.
Regarding the cost reduction, yes, indeed, as I mentioned, for this year, the economic landscape is pretty challenging internally and outside of China. For Ping An Group, we do have a lot of entities with different business lines and a big group working together. In order to maintain the safe operation of our business, we need to identify the business that can further drive the growth, especially grow our revenue. For some of our business, for example, the banking business continue to contribute to the revenue.
P&C written premium continue to go up, and we also see some inclusive finance studies are continue to go up. You can say for those business, we're going to further improve our investment inside. Technology is also the key. Technology is actually driving our main business growth. You see that the key technological investment is still need to be continued. For some, for example, day-to-day operation expenses, we're a big group, and we're trying very hard to downsize the day-to-day operation expenses. Even the travel standard and also the space rental for the offices and the IT development is being somewhat well managed in order to further reduce the cost. To be cost-saving is the approach that we're adopting now.
While regarding the future headcount management, we're surely going to follow the philosophy of investing the headcount in order to improve the productivity efficiency. We're still going to leverage the technology to have a digitalized operation, digitalized management. Digitalized operation will improve our operational efficiency. For example, to have a wholly automated module being available within the company. We would like to aim for the cost reduction to further reduce the operating expenses. This is a very important way for us to offset the gloomy financial pictures in H2 of this year or even in 2023. This is actually an operational countermeasure we have in order to further reduce the cost.
Let's welcome another question. The lady sitting in the back row, please.
Thank you very much. I come from the Economic Daily. My name is Richard Sheng. I have a question to the management team in fulfilling your social responsibility. This year is the 20th National People's Congress being commenced, and the society is conducting multiple activities to summarize what has been achieved in our society. For Ping An Group, you are the leading financial institutions in China and also on the leading verge of the innovation and the technological development. You contribute a lot to the society. Would you mind to share Ping An's experience and practice? How did you fulfill your social responsibility? Thank you.
Let me answer the question. The 20th National People's Congress is about to start. In the 1980s and 1990s, the congress has also been held for the past few years. You know that, for the past one decade, Ping An Group has already become a comprehensive financial and healthcare solution provider in the market with the world-class technology.
For the past 10 years, we're always being strategically deeply rooting our service to further improve our service capacity. There are few indicators I can share with you on assets, revenue, profit, tax, and job creation perspective. Our revenue for the past 10 years has been grow from RMB 300 billion to RMB 1.2 trillion, grow by 4 times. Total assets has been grow from RMB 2.8 trillion to RMB 11 trillion, grow by 3.5 times. Our tax has been grow from RMB 30 billion to RMB 120 billion, grow by 4 times. Our profit has been grow from RMB 20 billion to RMB 100 billion, close to 5 times. We also create job opportunities to millions of the population living in the society.
You can say that for the past one decade, we'll continue to serve the well-being of the society, contributing the value back to the society. We actively exercise our social responsibility. We always believe we have the poverty alleviation and rural renewal, service. We respond to the national call for the poverty alleviation, and we also started to become a pilot example in providing financial vehicles in supporting poverty alleviation. A few years ago, we started to work for the rural revitalization, started a San Cun program. By the end of June of this year, for Ping An altogether, we have already provided the poverty alleviation funds of close to CNY 50 billion. Whereas we are serving the real economy, you know that we proactively leverage the insurance funds, the credit funds, along with wealth management and financial resources to support the real economy.
By the end of last year, we altogether invested CNY 5.7 trillion, CNY 1.2 trillion from insurance funds. For example, we set up the Beijing, Shanghai high-speed train equity investment program, and we also leverage the insurance strengths to provide infrastructure investment in 150 investment insurance product in 150 countries and regions. We continues to support SMEs. For Ping An Bank and Ping An Inclusive Finance, their total balance of the loans close to trillions RMB. You can say that for our corporate loans, it accounted for 70% of the total loans. We also support green finance. By the end of June of this year, our green investment has already accounted for more than CNY 200 billion. Green bank business size is already close to CNY 160 billion.
You know, environmentally sustainable reinsurance product and the premium has already reached CNY 77 billion. At the same time, we continue to work for the charity philanthropy activities. For example, Ping An Hope Elementary School and the community charity activities. We continue to do so. It's not only for the past one decade, but for the past three decades for Ping An Hope Elementary School. We provide the construction and supported more than 1,000 such Hope schools by providing them the teaching staff and providing the necessities to the students. You know that for the past one decade, Ping An, yes, indeed, contribute a lot to the society by exercising our social responsibility, and we also take our responsibility seriously.
Okay. Now let's welcome the next question from the online channel, please. Thanks. Let's welcome Zhang Dili from Bloomberg, please.
Hello, management team. I have a question to you regarding your MBV for H1 of this year, and it was down a lot. With the deepening of the life insurance reform, what would be the MBV for H2 of this year or next year? Thank you.
Thank you. In H1 of this year, yes, for MBV, it was sliding down for three reasons. The first reason is because by the end of last year, we actually has actually adjusted the expected assumption. If we exclude that number, the MBV growth was negative 20%. The second reason is because the product structure changes. We have deposit and protection products being re-adjusted. That's the reason margins being reduced in order to take care of the customer need in the market. The third part is because of the downsize of the team.
You can see that our agent team, the productivities and the salary of the agents being improved by 35% and 27%, but our agents' team size has been further reduced. The FYP decreased by 30%. That's the reason why the NBV is still a negative number in H1 of this year. We're still in the process of reform. As I mentioned, no matter from the time perspective, you see that Q2 to Q1 started to show the narrowed down trend. In Q2, NBV reductions being narrowed down a lot, close to a positive number. You also see the greatest treatment being made by the life insurance reform. For some of those business office whose has already started under the reform for quite a long time, already started to have a positive growth in Q2 of this year.
You see that, for the whole year, I'm still confident that life insurance reform is going to follow the timeline, and I just want to further consolidate our practice of the reform. As Mr. Xie and Mr. Deng has already mentioned, the macroeconomic picture is still gloomy, and we also attach great importance to the macro investment and the interest rate of the loans. That's the reason we'd like to keep an eye on the macroeconomic trend to be prudent, especially in H1 of this year. Even with an environment full of uncertainty, we still deliver a strong scorecard to the market. We will still be prudent to do good on reform, to reduce our cost.
Cost reduction, we are improving the efficiency. On this way, we'll continue to optimize our performance for a robust and sustainable performance. Next question. According to Shanghai Stock Exchange initiative, China Ping An would seek questions from smaller investors, and we did it before the interim results announcement, and I will read out some of them. This question is about recently you have just changed your slogan. Does it mean that you will reduce your investment in the technology, and will this mean that you will no longer focus on technology-driven business growth? Well, probably I'll take this question. I believe that Ping An is the emblem of the entrepreneurship originated in Shenzhen.
I've been in Shenzhen for about 10 years now, and we are seeking development growth through innovation. I believe that this is the very sentence that have been leading our business development. Technology innovation is a key part and parcel and a key lever for our business growth. Technology innovation is important and is indispensable. Technology innovation has now become a DNA in each and everybody in Ping An. Wherever you go to in any bank branch or go to talk to any insurance agent, actually, innovation is part of our DNA. Technology is equally important as product and channels. We will keep doing innovation. We'll keep innovating on a day-to-day basis, increase the efficiency, increase the productivity, as well as driving some, you know, new contributions in our business operations.
Of course, we will keep answering the questions on Shanghai Stock Exchange questions and answer platform going forward. Let me just take another question from the offsite venue. This is Economic Daily. My question first is about healthcare. You just proposed this HMO model. With integrated finance plus HMO, what is the element in there that you want to introduce? Second is that the dividend increase year-on-year 4.5%. However, compared with the growth rate in last interim result announcement 10%, which is slower. My question for you is what is your dividend policy going forward? Well, HMO, I'll take this question first. What is the essence of a HMO model?
For instance, going forward, the development of finance services as well as insurance services are not enough to cater for people's needs in China, especially 400 million population who are on a higher level of their finance rank. They not only need financial services, they would also need healthcare services as well as elderly care. I believe that this is a great match to our business elements. That is why we put forward the concept of finance plus healthcare as well as elderly care. Why we have this like HMO China version? Well, on behalf of the payer's side, insurance plus finance services, we're providing services on the side of the payers. We have 100 million policyholders with a total premium of RMB 140 billion.
We're trying to incorporate more healthcare services into the insurance businesses. As I said before, those who enjoyed our financial services have 3.5 times more likely likelihood to enjoy our, you know, other services. We would also love to pool together great resources to provide high-quality healthcare services and elderly care. For instance, we have Ping An Good Doctor. We have services delivered off-site at those pharmacies as well as at home. We have proprietary doctors as well as partner doctors, in total 40,000 doctors. Then we are cooperating with thousands of hospitals across China, with over 3,000 pharmacies across the country, so that we'll be able to provide high-quality healthcare services to our policyholders. I think we're able to cover both the payer's side and the manager's side.
We have three advantages in doing this. You see that we have 227 financial clients as well as over 100 million policy clients. As I mentioned that we have been working on this over the past couple of years. Another point is the technology-powered performance development. It is not just lip service. We have a network driven by technology. We are able to deliver hundreds of service items in a connected way, which is enormous. This is going to be delivered gradually in the next 10 years to our clients, both from the insurance as well as from the healthcare sector. I'll take the question vis-à-vis dividend policy. There's an increase of 4.5% of half-year dividend. Why?
Just as we explained before, our dividend policy is pretty much in sync with our operating profit. For the first half of the year, our operating profit increased by 4.3%, and our dividend for half year is 4.5%. Last year dividend increase was higher. That is due to our operating profit grew faster than this year. I believe that this year, as everybody knows, there have been a cascade of challenges both inside and outside of our company. In the past decade, Ping An's dividend per share had been growing stably. Of course, there are some discrepancies in the growth rate year-over-year. You know, even before we registered about 20% increase in terms of the dividend rate, dividend level.
You know, given this year's situation, you have a relatively lower growth for operating profit. I should say, yeah, despite the differences from one year to another, we still maintain the same dividend policy. If in the future we have higher growth in operating profit, we would have a higher dividend growth as well. As to the return to shareholders, we have been valuing. We've been trying to drive value and a good return to our shareholders. We had just proposed our repo plan last year, and we have just completed CNY 5 billion worth of repo of our shares. Why did we do so?
It's because we believe that our business are now undervalued, and there's a discrepancy in the share price versus the true value of our business. I think that we are undervalued in the market. If you look at our performances, it's quite stable, and our finance have been really healthy, our business structure reasonable, our team is an excellent team. I think we proactively manage our capital value in the market. We have been introducing and promoting our value as well as philosophies. We've been doing about 6% dividend ratio, 5%-6%, roughly.
If you look at the normal valuation assets for insurance businesses right now, the valuation in the market is only 0.5x of the embedded values of our insurance business, which is quite disappointing. We would definitely do our work well, and we will proactively manage our valuation in the capital market so that there will be less and less of a mismatch between the price and the value. We're trying to narrow down the discrepancy and trying to make them more in sync. Just as I said, we will keep doing what we do and adopt a proactive and professional attitude, continue to reform our insurance and drive a bigger value in the future.
I believe that in the future, the market will gradually recognize the true value of our business. Well, due to the time limit, we'll give the last questioning opportunity to an online participant.
Well, Cable TV, Vienna. Fiona. Well, HSBC, if they finally decided not to spin off their Asian business, are you considering a possibility of you leaving their shareholder seat?
Well, I believe that our management had already addressed HSBC related questions. Another question coming from offline participant. Please go ahead. 21st Century Business Herald. This question goes to Mr. Yao. Well, you said that your value has been somehow underestimated in the capital market. Would you explain a little bit more on that and share some color as to how we are going to better represent our value of businesses in the market?
Second question is about your insurance fund investment. It's over RMB 4 trillion, and you are one of the biggest investor in the market. It seems that for the longer term, facing a shortage of high-quality assets, you've mentioned about the importance of riding through the ups and downs through cycles. If in the second half of the year you still face uncertainties in the external environment, what will be your focus of your investment areas, especially fixed income assets? Second question is to when you're allocating your insurance fund, what are the assets that you would look at more specifically?
Well, to answer your first question, our stock price, it's a rather sensitive topic. Of course, our business carried an embedded value versus a price in the market, which is fluctuating. Sometimes it's overvalued, sometimes it's undervalued. Well, to put it in quantitative terms, by estimation, of course, you see that we have embedded value times or multiple times of embedded values or maybe a fair value. I believe that there are a number of mature methods that people always use to evaluate a company's business. You know, just as I said, the multiple that we enjoy right now is only 0.5x. We also have this PE-based evaluation method. Right now, the PE ratio that we have is historically low, only 7-8x right now.
However, in the past, we had a double-digit PE times. So I think there are multiple ways of evaluating a business in the eyes of different people, different investors. Well, why we say that our business is still undervalued? The answer is simple. If you take a longer term and broader term perspective, you will see that the sector that we operate in, which is integrated finance, especially insurance. In the short term, due to the COVID, some demand had been pent up, and there's been slower sentiment or lower sentiment of buying insurances. For the longer term, I believe that China's insurance market is so far from the mature market as we've seen in Western countries. We also have this insurance plus healthcare and plus elderly care.
I believe that this sector still enjoys great and enormous growth potential. Second is that in our sector, we are a leader by all means. No matter you're talking about insurance or banking or even asset management, we are a great player. A third reason that I have, like, confidence is that we have an excellent team. When you're looking at a company, you look for their track record of performances. You know, this team, you know, we are right now presenting to you our businesses. We have been with our business for over a decade. We have been fulfilling our responsibilities. We have been driving forward technology-driven business development. We have been creating value as well as great business opportunities and returns. We are a reliable and professional team of management.
Well, I think stock price is a result of multifaceted factors. I think that we have every reason to believe that we'll have better stock price performances going forward in the future, and we have the confidence in our team as well.
Let me respond to the second question. What it means by riding through the cycles? I seldom guess what the stock price may look like and what the interest rate for H2 next year or even next year would be. What we need to do is to further consolidate our performance to strengthen our strategy. When we do the investment, a big part of the value chain or the returns comes from the strategic asset allocation, I mean, for the long-term investors. Then the tactical investment, and then selecting or handpick the right stock and right investment. For anyone who's been well-performed, you should have a consolidated performance to ride through the economic cycle. You need to understand that in the next one to two decades, what the returns we're going to have for the cycle recovery?
I will have a focused strategy. As long as the GDP of China continues to grow by 5%, 4%-5%, roughly speaking, within 4%-5%, then my return or my rational return would look like what? The market in the longer run will present me such a return 'cause it's something that an invisible hand is operating. I just want to be strategically focused rather than just invest too much on certain product or 'cause that's not gonna work with our strategic asset allocation. The second part is a tactical synergy. What we need to do is to organizational one rather than the disorganizational one, investment. When we have our own judgment over the economic cycle, when the market was down, it's probably the time for us to build our position.
You can say as an investor and we know what would be the resilience of the market, and we will be surely able to take care of that by strategic asset allocation, which industry we're going to invest in. We call it a process of generating the alpha and what can we do with that. We have a clear target in our minds. For example, recently we saw that enhancing and the advantages who are taking care of the disadvantages. These are the four sentences we have, and it encouraged us what would be the industry we need to invest. What is needed by China to further grow its economy. What would be needed for the macroeconomy? What would be the policy goal for? These are the areas we have to take care of.
I'm not going to give you too much specifics 'cause many of the information is already mentioned on the slides. According to that four point, you know, what would be the industry for us to invest in. We're gonna 100% follow the value investment philosophy of making sure we have a good project investment to generate the long-term return with a stable performance in the longer run. Thank you. Sorry, we have already overrun by 4 minutes. Here comes to the end of the 2022 interim result announcement. We also have Independent Board Member Wu Guangbing being here for this announcement. Thank you very much. Thanks for your trust and your support. If you have any further question, please contact our PR and brand team for further inquiry.