Good afternoon. Welcome to our company's annual results conference for 2023. I'm the company's VP, Chief Actuary and Board Secretary, Gong Xingfeng, and I'm the host of this meeting. First of all, I'd like to introduce to you the management members of our company who are attending today's meeting. They are Chairman Mr. Yang Yucheng, President Mr. Zhang Hong, VP Mr. Qin Hongbo, VP Mr. Wang Lianwen. In addition, we have the honor to invite the company's independent director to attend the meeting online. The conference will be divided into two parts: introduction and the Q&A session. We'll provide the translation. Mr. Yang will introduce our company's annual results, and later we will start the Q&A session. If you want to ask questions, please press star key and the number 1 to enter the queue. Now, let's move on to the introduction session.
Please welcome Mr. Yang Yucheng to introduce the company's annual performance. Respected investors, friends from the press, and analysts, first of all, welcome to attend our company's annual results conference. Thank you for your support to our company in the long term. Next, I will introduce the company's reform and development in 2023. The company formally implemented the requirements of the Central Economic Work Conference and the Central Financial Work Conference, intensified top-level design, initiated professional and market-oriented reform.
First, a diversified development position clarified positioning as a financial service group with life insurance at its core. On the main responsibility and the main business development, initiated wealth management system building, strengthened asset management capacity, explored innovative development model, accelerated old-age care business, and realized one-stop financial product supply, improved systems and mechanisms, explored a market-oriented personnel selection mechanism, strengthened staffing at all levels, enhanced cost-effective management, elevated refined management level.
We'll attach great importance on systematic operation, strengthen risk control and compliance system, upgrade management system, improve marketing system, introduce a new Basic Law for agents, and clarify high-performance orientation, improve product system centered on customer interests, build a full-circle product mechanism covering demand research development. Upgrade service system, offer more financial tax and legal services, integrate healthcare and older care resources, optimize support system, enhance coordination and operational support, optimize development layout, prioritize developed markets, consolidate comp regions built strong local offices, initiate regional development layout, improve supporting policies in respect of sales and products, adopt differentiated operation, and improve the closed-loop mechanism of supervision implementation. As a state-controlled financial institution, we serve national development strategies with focus on technology finance, green, inclusive pension, and digital finance. By the end of last year, the company supported real economy, invested CNY 920 billion, up 7.5% year-on-year.
Served national strategy: invested CNY 240 billion, up by 19.7%. Supported strategic emerging industries: invested CNY 25.8 billion, up 43%. Supported green development: invested CNY 17.4 billion, up by 19%. Supported construction of Third Pillar pension system: invested CNY 4 billion. Supported financing SME: invested CNY 10.6 billion, up by 253%. Served national strategy regional development: invested CNY 163.3 billion, up by 11%. We fulfill social responsibilities as a responsible state-owned company. Supported rural revitalization; we provided funds of CNY 20.66 million to support 20 assistance projects. Engaging in charitable donations, we donated CNY 18 million worth of cash and supplies, and we donated to 940,000 sanitation workers' worth of insurance amount. We stay committed to people-oriented finance and fulfill insurance responsibilities. We serve 31.986 million individual customers and 3,000 institutional customers. Since technology empowers customer service, the SMAP cluster served a total of 22.53 million visitors.
Continue to improve product supply, stick to diversified product strategy, encourage product innovation, and improve competitiveness. By the end of last year, there are 169 products on sale. We fulfill insurance responsibilities. We settle 4.4 million cases and compensated CNY 15.9 billion and built a branch of fast settlement excellent service. Upgrade service capabilities. We set 1,500 service contours and 630 elderly service stations, which benefited more than 100,000 customers. We stay committed to high-quality development and build brand power and manifest brand value. In last year, we were rated A2 by Moody's and were rated A by Fitch and listed among Fortune 500 for three years and were top 500 public companies by Forbes in 10 years. Next, I will introduce company value growth. In last year, the company adhered to high-quality development. The new business value grew rapidly.
On a comparable basis, the NBV was CNY 4 billion, up 65.1%. APE-based and first-year premium-based NBV margin increased by 3.7 percentage points and 3.4 percentage points. See the development opportunities of the industry. The gross written premium reached CNY 165.9 billion, including FYP reached CNY 40.9 billion, up by 5.4 percentage points. Renewal premiums reached CNY 121.3 billion, up by 1.3 percentage points, accounting for 73.1% of the GWP. In 2023, the company focused on regular business and continued to improve term structure. The first-year regular premium from long-term insurance business reached CNY 23.5 billion, up by 31.8%. Its ratio to first-year premium increased by 11.6 percentage points. Regular premiums with payment periods of 10 years among totaled CNY 2.9 billion. Individual insurance channel firmly pursued a philosophy of focusing on value and maintaining regular premium growth.
The FYRP from long-term insurance business reached CNY 11.1 billion, up by 9.8% year on year. The regular basis was enhanced. The individual insurance channel placed high-performing agents at the call, striving to forge a specialized professional and elite sales team. We have seen factor on the high-performing agents team building. The monthly average comprehensive productivity per capita was CNY 6,294. The bank assurance channel focused on regular business. The key business indicators have grown rapidly. The FYRP from long-term insurance business reached CNY 12.4 billion, up by 60.5 percentage points. The bank assurance channel was committed to transformation and customer-oriented concept, enhanced professional capabilities, and firmly built new business ecosystem. Optimized channel layout, stabilized cooperation, strengthened key breakthroughs, and achieved rapid growth in important partners. Focus on regular premium business. FYRP's business share was up 15.2 percentage points, enhanced team building, strengthened capability improvement.
Business development highlighted worth customers in progress. Insurance trust in service was executed. The business quality has been improved rapidly. The 13-month persistent ratio of individual insurance business was 89.8%, up by 7.2 percentage points. We'll do a better job in 2024. The persistent ratio is a key indicator. The company's investment assets had increased rapidly stably. Our investment assets reached CNY 1.3 trillion, up 15.4 percentage points. The capital markets fluctuated greatly. The main broad-based index weakened, and the profit of the company was under pressure accordingly. The new accounting rule, the total investment yield was 1.8%, and the net profit yield was 3.4%. The company's investment assets are mainly fixed income investment. By the end of last year, financial investment bonds accounted for 50.4%. We adhere to value-oriented investment, adopt flexible tactics, control positions, grasp structural opportunities.
We combine medium and short-duration products with long-duration interest-rate bonds and extend asset durations. We are actively seeking high-quality products and taking measures to prevent credit risk. The company continued to reduce non-standard assets. By the end of last year, the non-standard assets totaled CNY 156.9 billion, a decrease of CNY 64.2 billion, decreasing 6.7 percentage points compared with the end of last previous year. Most of the non-standard assets underlying assets are loans. We have implemented subject credit and have good credit enhancement measures. The existing non-standard assets with AAA ratings accounted for 98.6%. The overall credit risk was limited. By the end of last year, the company's contractual service margin ratio was 157%, up 16 percentage points. Comprehensive services margin ratio was 278%, up 40 percentage points. Lay a solid foundation for the sound development of the company.
Next, I will introduce the company's outlook for the future in 2024. The company will try to build an international world-class modern insurance company. We will thoroughly grasp the principles of Central Work conference and strengthen strategic leadership and try to build a professional market-oriented modern international insurance company. Strengthen strategic leadership and advance reform and transformation. Cultivate our internal strength, transform towards a learning organization and service-powered organization. We will build a training system that covers all internal staff and external agents and build a customer service support system with efficient collaboration and effective empowerment. Enhance our development capabilities and consolidate the foundation, focusing on structural optimization and value growth. Improve asset and liability management. Combine the requirements of the liability side with the requirements from the asset sides. We will strengthen sustainable development. Upgrade the service system and create a service ecosystem.
Serve the construction of multi-level and build models such as insurance homestay, elderly care, home insurance plus high-quality health, and implement a high-net-worth brand Xinhua Zun and provide the people with a wider range of products. Shape the brand culture and enrich the spiritual heritage. We try to combine the financial culture with Chinese characteristics, combine our 27-year history, and refresh the cultural value. Advocate competition and openness and institutionalized culture and highlight cultures with actions and build a trustworthy brand. That's the end of the presentation. Thank you.
Thank you for introducing the annual results of the company and showing that in 2023, the company emphasized the reform and opening up and the highlights of the business as well as the outlook for the next year's business. The introduction is in line with the company's operation management and strive to promote high-quality growth of the company. Next, let's go to the Q&A session. Due to time limits, please pose no more than two questions. Please tell us your name and the company. Next, let's welcome the questions. Thank you for the introduction. I am an analyst from Haitong Securities, Sun Ting. First, I would like to congratulate on the result of the company. NBV has realized tech growth. I have two questions. First is, in the past one year, the management team has made great changes.
I want to ask the management team that how do you comment on the market status and what the market can expect to NCI, and what are your reforms and reforms measures? The second question is about the NBV value. We can see that the investment yield assumption and we can see that for the sensitivity analysis, we can see if we lower the investment yield of 50 basis points, we can see the NBV will decrease by 83%, which is higher than the peers as well as the past history. We can see a higher sensitivity. I want to ask how can we understand of this data and what will be the changes of this data and how will the company reduce the liability costs and the dependence on the insurance policies? Mr. Gong Xingfeng will answer the second question. Your question is very accurate.
I cannot debate that because the data are there. If we see the data of NCI in the past several years, we can see the sensitivity of the NBV to the rate is that we are highly sensitive to the interest rate and higher than peers. For the reasons and histories of this evolvement of data, we can see the major reason is the business structure. We can see this year, the FYP of the bancassurance channel has accounted for 67%. And in the past, the proportion is higher. There is a highly competitive market. If you want to have growth in the bancassurance channel, we have two advantages, and these are necessary. And the first is we should have joint efforts to provide customers with service together with the banks. The second is inside the company, we should have better pricing capabilities.
We can see that the profit rate for the bancassurance business is lower, but we cannot get rid of the bancassurance channel in the past history. NCI has attached importance to bancassurance channel, which is that we position bancassurance channel as a major channel to gain customers and win market status, which can also answer your question about market status. This is also a foundation for constant and sustainable growth of a company. In the past, we constantly talk about the position and the importance of the bancassurance channel. We haven't changed that. This is the first reason in the past for the history reasons that the bancassurance channel has a higher percentage of FYP in a competitive market environment. The second is the product structure has changed.
In the past several years, we can see that NCI has shifted from a company that focuses on health insurance to a company that has a higher proportion in whole life insurance, which is also in line with the changes of market and customers' demand. Maybe our growth speed of whole life insurance is higher than our peer companies. This is because, first, the whole life insurance will have a higher sensitivity to the interest rate. But how can we comment on this matter? First, we know there are historical issues, and we have to attach importance to these issues. The management team has also noticed this problem. We have strengthened the construction of our product mix and to improve the sales capabilities of individual channel and the group channel to improve the quality of the business.
On the other hand, the diversified product strategy showed that we cannot have one major product. We have to explore the potential for health insurance, aged care insurance business, and to find opportunities to ensure that we have a more balanced business product structure to better respond to the interest and the yield fluctuations. This is my answer. Mr. Yang will answer the first question. The management team are confident about the development of NCI. We believe in our peer companies. We have our own unique advantages. First, we have a strong shareholder. The CIC and the Central Huijin is a major shareholder of our company. The second shareholder is Bao Steel, which are major central state-owned enterprises with strong strength. To build a strong finance in China is also an inbuilt spirit of NCI's culture.
And the second, since the new NCI has the engine of market development, we are first a private company and then transferred into a state-owned company. We have to and we will play the role of our two advantages. We believe it can release huge potential and power. To build a professional, modern, and international business, just as I've mentioned, then this is our goals. Also, we have other advantages. We have over 28 years' history, and we have accumulated over millions of customers and over 1,700 sales offices. We have over CNY 1.4 trillion assets, which are high quality, as well as our talent team. We have a strong and professional talent team, which is also important and laid the foundation for our growth. After I came to NCI, it has been seven months.
The party committee of the company has introduced a series of reform measures, which you might have heard. First is we emphasize the leadership of the strategy. We emphasize the reform of institutions and mechanisms to build a strong talent team. We hope to become more professional and market-oriented. We will emphasize both asset side and liability side for the liabilities. In the past, the life insurance industry has a lot in common. It is more like sales-driven business. Now, we want to shift to the real customer-centered business model, and we will strive to work on that. For example, as a customer-oriented strategy, we hope to improve our service to customers. The finance, tax, and law service will be further improved. We have introduced a high-end customer service system, Xinhua Zun, which is a brand we hope to introduce.
In late 2023, we have introduced the Basic Law in individual insurance channel to emphasize the incentives and to the agents in individual insurance channel. The competitiveness of the agent team and the products has improved. The customer service ecosystem has also been improved. This year, we hope to build a company which focuses more on the service and the self-service empowered organization to improve the quality of development. In 2024, we emphasized the value and long-term payment business. We take the business quality as the first. We believe the major indicator for life insurance business is the value growth. In the decrease of the interest rate environment, we have to lower the cost of liabilities. We have introduced a series of products to increase the values.
For example, we hope to, in all levels of our company, to consolidate the business and to strengthen the reform measures. For the asset side, we will strengthen our allocation and enrich the asset allocation products, introduce talents, and increase the asset management abilities. In the past, we have done a good job in the past, but we hope to further improve the asset management and the team as well as the investment subjects. All the measures are under progress. We believe NCI will take off in the future, and we are confident about the growth and the development of the company. We believe with our internal efforts, with our customer service further implemented, we will grow more professional and market-oriented. We will have a higher market status and reputation. We will focus on our own business and consolidate our measures.
We believe we can have better business performance in the future. Let's welcome the next question. Thank you for the opportunity. I have several questions. First is in 2023, there is a shift in life insurance industry. Now, we can see there is a layered management of the agents. There are the regulation changes as well as the lowering of guaranteed rate. I want to know your comment. Second, I want to know your investment strategy in 2024. Thank you for your question. Mr. Zhang Hong will answer the questions. First, for the industry, we have our understanding and the comments. For now, we think life insurance industry is encountering huge challenges and changes. But also, at the same time, we believe there are opportunities, and there is a huge potential for future growth of the industry. We believe challenges and opportunities both exist.
There are changes of customers' demand and product supply. The customers' demand is becoming more diversified and professional. They hope to have a better customer experience. In the past, we have made market research, and we can understand and realize that people have a higher demand for aged care and healthcare. I will make efforts on that. Also, for the supply side, we can see there is a synergy for the product. We are lacking in our service quality and capability. So we have to further improve that. We believe it is a challenge for the management of the company. We believe the economy is under pressure. Interest rate is in a lower level. Under these circumstances, the recruitment of the agents and the rotation of the agents has encountered difficulties.
In the investment side, the chairman has mentioned that we strive to find good and high-quality assets, but the opportunities are rare. For the asset and liability management, they will pose higher difficulties. It will pose a higher requirement and a challenge to asset and liability match management. We believe we should be optimistic about the potential and the growth, which is opportunity. We believe in the long run, the economic fundamentals are sound, and we are confident about the growth. We believe China has a large population, and the economy has great potential. We believe the huge economic growth potential will bring huge opportunities for life insurance industry. We believe with the recovery and growth of the economy, the consumption of the citizens will increase. We believe there are huge opportunities for the industry.
Now, we have implemented the requirement of the central government to make efforts in developing inclusive finance and the pension finance and to build the third-pillar pension system to make steady progress. We believe there are huge potential and opportunity for future growth. Personally, I think for NCI, just like Mr. Yang has mentioned, we are confident. Just now, you also asked the measures of our company. Just the chairman has elaborated. I would like to further add that as we all know, Mr. Chairman has assumed office in August last year. I have a feeling that the leader in the securities industry has brought the new management philosophy and measures for NCI and how to build a professional, market-oriented, and international life insurance industry.
In this regard, we not only this is not only a slogan, and this is a goal and mission we have embodied to ourselves. We hope to make early movements and steady practice measures in both asset and liabilities to grow the business. I would like to have some more detailed introduction. For our business, the whole system has made actions. We have improved our strategic deployment in all levels. We can see that in the future, the strategic deployment is very important and critical. After analyzing the current development status and histories of the company, we have introduced the regional development layouts plan. We will invest more resources to key regions and cities and to grow development patterns that emphasize our own competitive areas. The second is to build a more talented team.
Just now, we mentioned last year, we have introduced a new Basic Law centering building a high-performance rate. After Q1 , we can feel that this is effective. The productivity per capita of the agents has increased greatly. We believe to build a team with competitiveness, we can have greater potential and vitality for future growth. Second is we will be customer-centered. We are working on that. We are conducting layered management of customers and focusing on high-end customers. We are building a high-end customer service system. Also, for the mass customers, we will do a good job in service and product supply. For example, Huiminbao has been providing service to the customers. Hopefully, we can improve our brand reputation. Also, we will strengthen the building of professional distribution channels.
We will try to grow the high-performance agents and to grow our dual-engine bancassurance channel. In group channel, we hope to strengthen our service to national strategy and serve our customers. Also, in terms of the internet sales, we have launched our app and speed up the efforts. For the product innovation, we also have made efforts. We have done research to the customers and the agents. Based on the different demand of the customers, we hope to have more differentiated products to serve their different demands. Our goal is to enhance innovation, to introduce competitive products. For the asset side, just now, our chairman has elaborated, and I will comment. Also, I want to talk about the system and mechanism reform.
We hope to have a more meticulous management and build a high-performance-oriented evaluation mechanism and to build a mechanism that is market-oriented to allow free flow of talents. Also, we hope to optimize the financial resources and management and invest our resources more effectively to the key areas. In this regard, we actively respond to the central government's calls and have strict control on the fee cost. We have meticulous management measures in our liability side. Just now, you've also mentioned the layered management of the agents. I want to talk that on March 18th, the regulator has introduced the policies to strengthen the management of agents and the risk management of life insurance company in six aspects. The management team emphasized on this policy.
We have studied the policy, and we have deployed relative departments as the leading group and several departments to supplement and support the project. Because the regulator has some requirements, we'll have to report the data to them. We attach importance to that. We believe this will strengthen the company's risk prevention control, which is very important. Under current circumstances, the interest rate spread losses has posed risk to the liability management. We have to control risks, which is important to our long-term sustainable growth. We believe this is not only a risk control measure. We also promote the life insurance insurers to return to the essence of insurance. The policies have some concrete regulations and requirements. We believe this will stabilize the development of the industry. Also, there are some extra bonus like the ESG aspect.
So if you've done contributions to inclusive finance, it will have some extra credit, which is sound guidance for the life insurance industry and the companies. And we believe it will promote the insurers to serve the economy. And this is my introduction. Thank you. Next, let's welcome the online questions. If you want to raise questions, please press down the one. Thank you. Next, let's welcome phone number 6786. Please tell us your name and company. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm Zhang Xiaotong from Zhongzhou Securities. I have two questions. First is about asset and liability matching management. Now, the interest rate spread and losses is a key topic in the industry. How to understand on this topic? I want to know your comment. And how can we compare and understand the indicators and the status of the company?
In the future, what are the measures in terms of ALM, and what are your plans? And the second, I want to ask about individual insurance channel. We believe at the end of last year, the total agent head counts has decreased, and the productivity has increased, doubled. But the qualified agent ratio has a slight increase. And I want to ask whether the productivity increase is mainly driven by the high-performance agent. And I want to know your future plan and measures for the promotion of agent team building and for the mass and normal agents. And I want to know your measures in recruitment. And will you set some lines or limits to the recruitment, or will you recruit the normal people? And after recruit the agents, then the company selects the high-qualified agents. And Mr. Gong Xingfeng will answer the first question.
For the asset and liability matching, the company has done some efforts. Now, there's a hot topic, namely the interest rate losses. Whether there is interest rate loss or how can we comment on that? I think we should have introduced one premise that is if the interest rate continues to decrease, the assumption will be inevitable. But if we do not add this premise, I think the answer to that is neutral. I believe we can have expectation about a lower interest rate. And under these circumstances, the potential risk for interest rate losses will be a real one. In 2023, the equity market is highly volatile, which is a vivid lesson for the industry about the interest rate losses. And we can see that the leverage of the interest rate can have huge losses if they cannot cover the liability cost.
In this regard, we should first talk about the asset-liability management. We should look at this question at a higher level. First, I think we should view this question long-term. Now, we can see there are some temporary fluctuations, but we should comment on review of long-term investment yield. In 2023, the fluctuation of the interest rate and equity market gives some lessons. We have done some efforts on that. First is we will strengthen the philosophy of long-term investment. We all know that the liability management of life insurance is long-term. How can we live through the long-term cycle? I think there's a question mark for the life insurance asset. The insurance fund should have passed through the different economic cycles. This doesn't mean the company of life insurance can pass through the long-term cycle. Just now, Mr.
Chairman has said we should have built a service-oriented and training-oriented organization and to empower the business so that we can have higher capabilities to manage the asset and the liability. The second is to improve the differentiated competitive strength. Now, we believe the market is highly competitive. There is a homogeneity of the market. Also, the service. How can we leave a unique development path? We should have unique features in asset and liability management. Just now, the analyst has talked about the business structure. This is our uniqueness. We should also see the business in the long-term but also make up for the short-term weakness. We have to have a clear awareness of our management strength. We can live through the history and become the real gold. We will still be in the stage after the tidy.
So in this respect, just now, Mr. Zhang has introduced that we have done efforts in reducing liability cost, improving productivity, and to strengthen the service ecosystem and strengthen the customer service capabilities. And thirdly, I believe we should improve the synergy of asset and liability. We have to, in our organizational structure, have a more coordinated and a synergy of asset and liability management. Recently, we have established special teams in managing special insurance accounts. And the group introduced the distribution channels, the management of the investment asset, as well as actuary department. All the related departments will altogether talk about the sales in the liability and asset allocation to form the coordination of asset and liability so that the liability can effectively reduce costs.
We will decrease the guaranteed rate of 3.5% and reduce the liability cost, especially the unnecessary costs, and to improve the efficiency, give more interest to the customers, as well as pose higher requirements to assets and to take a more market-oriented approach in asset management. The fourth is innovation. For the asset and liability management, we talk about the scarcity of high-quality assets as well as high liability costs. Now, yes, there are pressures in the economy. We have to be innovative to solve those problems for the company. Just now, we have talked, we are aware that there are some products that are highly sensitive to the interest rate. In the future, we will strengthen the sales and innovation of products such as the participatory insurance product and the universal life insurance product.
In the long run, we hope to have done a better job in asset-liability matching management to reduce the risk of interest rate losses. There's a saying that great companies grow from headwinds. We believe NCI will become a great company in the shift of economic cycle. Mr. Chairman will add. Just now, the analyst from Zhongzhou Securities is very good, and it has meaning for the industry development. After I come to NCI, I am growing my understanding and understanding of the life insurance industry. We believe the economic cycle of China is in a downward cycle. It's like the 1990s Japan. In the past decades, China economy has experienced decades of high growth. Life insurance is also in line with the growth. The asset and liability has grown. The liability is our commitment to the customers, which is rigid.
We should pay and assume our commitments. For the asset side, the high-yield assets like the local investment vehicle financing and real estate investment, as well as national assets. In the past, maybe the liability cost can reach 4 or even 6. As well as for the asset side, the investment yield can reach 8% or 9%. Those high yields have empowered and guaranteed the high-quality growth and long-term growth of the life insurance industry in the past several years. Now, it has entered into a new stage. Just now, Mr. Gong has talked good about China's economy. I think China's economy is having great potential. There are opportunities in the reform and economic recovery. We believe for the macroeconomy, we are confident.
We are firmly responding to the call of the central government and to forge ahead and to transform the economy with the new quality. In the government report of Mr. Li Qiang, there's a word called high-quality new productive forces. We believe it will bring new bonus and productivity to the growth. We will follow the direction of the central government. For the asset side management, different companies have their features. I believe NCI will walk in the forefront of the industry. In 2024, just now, I can talk about that. In 2024, we will improve the investment and bring greater profits to the company. To conclude, we will do efforts in three aspects. First is to grow longer, grow wider, and grow deeper. For grow longer, we will be committed to long investing and value investing.
We believe liability features brought long-term feature of our investment fund. We believe the long-term investment and value investing is a feature for insurance fund. We are a major force in the market. We will allocate the asset with long-term, such as the long-term interest rate bonds. We will also allocate to the asset that has long-term holding features. We will enrich our investment subjects, especially the subjects that are in line with the feature of serving national economy, such as have the feature of new quality productivity, such as the new infrastructure building and the new energy. We will seize the bonus growth in this respect and opportunities and to grow the investment yield. The third is to go deeper. After I went to NCI, previously, I worked in Shenwan Securities. Shenwan has been known as the Huangpu School of the Industry.
And we believe the research and the study of the company is important to the company. And we believe it will bring the momentum to the company's development. Only deeper research and study can bring the momentum for the productivity. And we can seize and grasp the market opportunities. And this is the strategy and tactics in the asset side. We will grow longer, wider, and deeper. And for the tradings, we have our own strength. Aside from the asset allocation, we will attach importance to the value investing and long-term investing goal: longer, deeper, and wider. Also, we will strengthen, emphasize, and allocate to non-directional and low-volatility assets. And we have understanding and strength, as well as strategy in terms of our asset management and allocation. Interest rate losses are not a problem for one company. It's an industry-wide issue.
We hope that we can do a better job in this regard. Thank you. For the life insurance business, let's welcome Mr. Wang Lianwen to answer. Thank you for your question. Just now, you've mentioned the decrease of agent headcounts in 2023. The agent headcounts have decreased by 20%. There are three reasons. First is the life insurance industry is still undergoing transformation and adjustment. The whole industry has encountered a trend of decreasing headcounts. And not one company is experiencing growth agent headcounts and growth business. The major reason for that is there are some changes in the workforce market, the macroeconomy, and in the industry. And the second reason is that the whole industry has its own features. In America, Japan, and other countries, we can see that the retention rate for one year for the one-year agent is only about 20%-30%.
And it's kind of inevitable. The third is the old recruitment models cannot work. The old ways cannot work. We should and we are exploring the new ways for recruitment. So we can see the agent headcounts are going down, but it's more stable. But in 2023, the business performances have highlights, such as the MVV has grown by 65%. The productivity increased by 69.4%. This is because that we are following a path of improving productivity and stabilizing structure. We hope to improve our business structure to improve the productivity. We shift from the products with lower premium policy to policies with higher premiums. This will greatly improve the productivity. The second is we hope to grow the high-performance agents, which is about the top 5,000 or 520,000 agents. Those are the major team of our business growth.
And also, we hope to have more collaborative in our product improving system, including the frontline sales and supporting department, to improve the productivity. We should also optimize the business structure, including the term structure. We have reduced the product with payment period of 3-5 years and increased the product with payment period of 10 years or more. And the improvement of term structure contributes to the MVV growth. And also, with the daily recruitment of high-quality agents, it has brought opportunity and confidence to our future growth. And we have optimized the business costs. And this also contributes to the persistency ratio of our company. And the bonus to the agents also shift in terms of managing the persistency ratio. Last year, we have introduced a new management Basic Law. And there are differences between the different Basic Laws.
The previous Basic Law focused on the agent headcounts growth. At that time, the greater agent headcounts will have more business and higher growth. In 2023, there are changes in the industry. The agent headcounts-driven business cannot work. And more, we should follow a path featuring high-quality and high-performance agents. Only with high-quality growth of one company can we pursue a high-quality growth of the industry. Led by the new chairman of the company, we clarified that we will follow the high-quality growth, which is internal high-quality growth, not the agent headcounts-driven growth. We should grow the business with the building of a high-performance team. We introduced a new Basic Law, which is featuring the high-performance agents. We emphasized the capability improvement of individual agents. We hope that our whole team and organization will be stable and leave among the headwinds.
We believe the new Basic Law will promote the team building. We have made efforts in three aspects. First is we have strengthened the recruitment criteria and increased the criteria. We believe not every people can do good business in insurance sales. We have a saying that the insurance is not done by normal people. They are done by the talented people. So we should nurture the team building. For the recruitment, we emphasize we should recruit the high-quality agents. We are clear that what kind of agents can adapt to insurance sales and NCI. The second is we will consolidate the basic management to consolidate the foundation for team growth so that we can have a basic foundation for the growth. The third is to strengthen the honorary system. We all know that the biggest incentive is self-incentive. The worst incentive is external pressure incentives.
We believe the internal incentives can bring internal incentive to growth. We believe the honorary system can have huge promotion to our business. We have made great efforts in building the honorary system. For example, we have strengthened the IDA, International Dragon Award, and also our Agent Team Summit system. Also, we have strengthened our criteria and the layered management of teams, such as the excellent agents, the agents with CNY 10,000 FYC. For those assets, for those agents, they can meet the criteria of IDA. For the excellent agents, the criteria is the FYP of over CNY 6,000. We can believe they can be a cornerstone of our company. For the performing agents, the criteria is FYC of over CNY 3,000 FYC. We believe they are the core of our team.
Guided by the new basic law, we are confident about our team building because under the new basic law, the agents can have a better understanding and a growth map of their growth. All the branches and the frontline office, they have created an atmosphere that every agent and staff study the agent law to guide the business growth. In 2024, we believe and we can see that it has created a sound atmosphere for business growth. In the future, we believe we will further emphasize the recruitment criteria and team nurturing so that the quality of the team will grow and we can enter a path of internal motivated growth. Next, let's welcome the onsite questions. Thank you for the management team. I'm Grace Young from Dong Securities. I have two questions. First, I want to ask about the business performance in the past year.
We can see that the company has adopted the IFRS 9 and IFRS 17. The company restated the business of 2023. The scale is larger. The company disclosed that the profit decreased by 43% on a like-for-like basis. I want to know that the restated base in 2024 is high. The reason for that and what are the adjustments to that? The second question is about the economic assumptions. We can see that the non-unit-linked investment yield assumption has decreased by 50 BP. The risk discount rate has decreased by 200 BPs. I want to know the mechanism under that adjustment. Now the 4.5% investment assumption. Do you think there is some pressure in fulfilling that assumption? Mr. Gong Xingfeng will answer those two questions. First, about the IFRS 17.
Just now, you mentioned that we have increased the base of the profit in 2022. I cannot agree with you on that. We did not intentionally increase the base. This is a normal adjustment based on the IFRS 17. T he management team did not make some adjustments to the restated data. J ust as we've mentioned in our annual report, the number is not comparable because in 2023, we have given the financial data based on the IFRS 9 and IFRS 17. And the number of 2022 is under IFRS 17 and IAS 38. And there are two sets of accounting standards. T hey are not comparable. They follow different principles and standards. F or NCI, we followed the new accounting standard, including IFRS 17 and IFRS 9, and included that in our daily management under IAS 39. W e have followed the requirement of the Ministry of Finance.
We did not restate the number of our financial number based on IFRS 9. I can see some research papers say that there is a huge decrease of our profit, a decrease from CNY 21 billion to CNY 8.9 billion. I think this comparable is not appropriate. So in order to lower your anxiety, I think we have disclosed an extra number that is a modeled number. This is not a legal requirement of number disclosure. This is our own disclosure. We hope to give you an extra number to understand our financial data. You can have a comparison at a comparable basis. The comparable number is following the new accounting standard. This is a model number for your reference. This is my explanation about the financial data.
I want to also say that in 2023, IFRS 17 and IFRS 9 have been fully adopted. We are smooth in adapting to the new accounting standard. Also, we have got a word in the industry. This has laid a sound foundation for our financial management of our company. Hopefully, in 2024, we will work together with the analysts to have a more comparable analysis of financial data. The second is about the adjustment mechanism of financial data in the past two years. I'm waiting for this question. It's not because I am fully prepared. It's because in the past two years, people ask me questions about whether we adjust the number or when and whether will we adjust those numbers. At that time, I can only have some preliminary discussions.
This year, we can see that we adjust the investment return assumptions and the risk discount rate assumptions. The investment return assumptions adjusted to 4.5%. The RDR adjusted to 9%. You can see that we made adjustments based on our long-term investment expectations. In the past, we have an investment return of 5%. This is because life insurance business is long-term. We are prudent in adjusting those assumptions. Those adjustments are based on our understanding and expectation of a long-term trend. Also, it is related to the management level and the investment return of life insurance industries. It doesn't mean that the lower of investment return assumptions equals to a lower investment capabilities. We should combine those two aspects. Just now, Mr. Young has mentioned that China is resilient in its economic growth. We are adjusting and growing the high-quality productivity.
Under the new circumstances, we believe China's economy will have a better performance in the future. We are confident about the future growth of China's economy. This is a premise of the adjustment. In this process, I think the risk-free investment yield is decreasing. After considering all those measures and reasons, we have lowered 50 BP of the investment return assumptions. For the investment asset, just now, Mr. Young has introduced an elaborate in terms of going longer, deeper, and wider. For the company, we have followed an investment return assumption of 4.5% based on our understanding of the industries' growth and our economic growth. We have established a coordinated synergy mechanism in adjusting both the RAR and the investment return assumptions. For the adjustment of the RAR, we should also take into a look at the constituents of the RAR.
There are two aspects. First is risk-free rate and risk premiums and also some spreads. The risk-free rate and the risk premiums are the two parts. After the company research and the study of our pricing models, we can see that the risk premium of the company is 5%-5.5%. Under an evaluation of 5.4% as well as the risk premium, we think the RAR of 9% is appropriate in line with our market status and our understanding of the market. We believe those two assumptions will not be stable will not remain stable forever. We will have a more mobile understanding and research on that and make adjustments accordingly. Thank you. Next, let's welcome the on-site questions. I'm going from First Finance. In the past year, we can see that the investment yield of the company is 3.04%.
I have compared your peers. The allocation to stocks has decreased. But NCI has increased the allocation to stocks. I want to know what areas or industries you've allocated in terms of equity investment. How do you comment on the secondary market? The second is we know that China Life and New China Life has established a securities company. I want to know your progress. Will NCI, as a management company, continue their business? How do you solve their mixed or similar business? Thank you for your question. Mr. Xing will answer those two questions. First is for the equity investment. The company has several considerations. First is we follow the long-term investment strategy. The second is we will consider the specific opportunities and to adjust the positions. The third is we will select high-quality subjects in the industry.
In the past year, the equity investment of the company is maintained stable and makes steady progress. We are prudent in the allocation in equity investment. Maybe the number you've seen is a spot number. For NCI, we are prudent in terms of equity investment. There is no large fluctuation or changes as allocation mix. The second is strategy into 2024. Just now, Mr. Chairman has mentioned that we are confident about China's economy and also taking into consideration the current market status and the environment as well as the specific fluctuation of internal and overseas market. We should also take into consideration the changes of the market and long-term asset allocation requirement. So with those considerations, we will emphasize several aspects.
First, in terms of growth rider, we will consider the opportunities in the primary market as well as the high-dividend assets as well as preferred stocks. On the other hand, we will consider the industry transformation because China's economy is undergoing profound changes. The previous asset allocation will have some shift and rotation in different industries. Now, we are talking about high-quality productivity. Now, we believe the high-quality productivity is focusing on the we believe we will make an adjustment in the high-quality asset and high-dividend assets. We believe they are a lot of importance. In terms of the high-dividend asset, we believe we will select assets. And our professional team will strike a balance between that. To conclude, we believe we will follow our strategic asset allocation and to invest with our professional talents in asset management.
And the second, your question may reflect a too complicated understanding of that. The security companies established by NCI and China Life will altogether work and explore opportunities in the asset allocation. The operation and asset investment of the security company will not be conflicting with the company's own asset allocation. So we are confident in the security company. Mr. Young will further add that the percentage of equity investment has a slight increase. But the proportion of equity investment for NCI is not high in the whole industry. We are in the lower range. And the number accurate, you can look on that. In 2023, the equity investment market has encountered fluctuations. We are optimistic about the stock market as well as the Hong Kong market. We believe the market is high investment values. We actively participated in the stock market and the share market.
We have the requirement, especially long-term investment requirement. We believe there are investment values. You have asked detailed industries that we have allocated. You know that we have over CNY 1 trillion investment assets. We will diversify our concentration. We will diversify the risks. We'll have a better management of the concentration risks. I have a long history working in securities companies. We are aware of the importance of the concentration risk. We have a consensus that with our colleagues, that life insurance company should follow the lower industry and the non-standard assets. So those directions will not change. We are looking on many industries such as the assets with high dividend yield and high payout ratio, high technology industry or industry with higher cash flow, the consumption industries, minerals, gold, energy areas or industries. So those industries, we will take a look on those industries.
We emphasize our research and study on different industries. We have a sound cooperation mechanism with different research teams. We also have a strong research team. We will explore the investment resources. Just now, I've mentioned we will grow strong, longer, wider, and deeper. The standardized bond and stocks will have some fluctuations. To reduce the fluctuations, we will increase the allocation to the new infrastructure, the electricity, the city rebuilding, etc., especially the areas that have higher security as well as alternative investment and private equity investment. We have demand also deployment in those regards. The company, we will improve our investment capability and constantly improve our capability. We will also take good use of third-party investment assets.
We will have cooperation with Fu Guo and the Sino-Euro Fund as well as a bilateral fund of CIC such as the China-France and the China-UK bilateral investment funds. We only select the high-quality third-party research partners. We believe for the primary market, the PE as well as the alternative investment assets will follow the strategy of non-directional and the lower fluctuation assets. We will diversify our investment subjects as well as to reduce the concentration of risks to expand our investment channels and subjects. We will see opportunities evolve from the high-quality productivity so that we can seize the opportunities and the growth bonus from the high-quality productivity areas. We will explore the resources and opportunities of research and opportunities. We hope that the research department of the securities companies can have better support to our company.
Just now, Mr. Gong has answered and talked about our Honghu Fund, a security that we are cooperating with China Life. Those funds will focus on the long-term investment in the secondary market. The investment asset of the company has surpassed CNY 1,002.25 billion, which is only a small proportion of our invested asset. We will invest in a standardized investment. Also, we will have deployed in terms of the new quality productivity and the new infrastructure, etc. Due to time limits, let's welcome the on-site question. Thank you, Mr. Gong. This is a question from Shanghai Securities. The new management team has established the industry is looking forward to the development of the company. I want to know your business measures and strategies. This question is for me. At the beginning, I have a simple answer of that.
The new party committee of the company emphasized high-end design and strategy to grow a fine financial company. The strategy is critical. The incentive and constraints mechanism are important. The teams and talents are important. The culture is important. Culture is the major competitiveness. The technology is also a key indicator. I think those are the major issues for the financial industries. I have been working for a financial industry for over 20 years. I have my personal understanding and practice in financial industry. I believe the financial industry should follow the professional and market-oriented path. For a financial company, we are dealing with the money and the financing and investment can easily surpass CNY billions. So we should be professional and market-oriented. The financial industries generate data. We have data released monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
We will stick to professional and market-oriented development. NCI has 28 years' history. We have profound accumulation. We will be ambitious in our future growth. The history has given us millions of customers and the distribution channels and sound cooperation with banks. The accumulation is rich. We have a talented team. We have 25,000 staffs. We have hundreds of thousands of agents. With those foundations, we should have a better performance and market status. We should renew our culture values. All levels of our company should have internal incentives to grow the business. We will grow our brand culture and spiritual heritage to forge ahead. We have ambitious and long-term growth vision. We will grow NCI in a higher level and vision. We believe the management team are ambitious. We are ambitious in our growth.
We will release our full potential and devote our efforts. I emphasized the unity of the board members and the management team. We believe the joint efforts of the management team will empower the management. All the staff of the company know that the party committee, the management team, all levels of talents and leaders are confident and motivated. We have introduced a series of reform measures. On the one hand, we emphasize the innovation of products. We emphasize the customer-oriented culture to put customers at the center. We will have supplemented measures to improve the service system. For example, the contactless servicing culture. The sales of products is not only the sales of agents. It is the competition between our collaborative efforts, including the supporting departments. We know that the staff of a company do not sell policies.
Policies are sold by agents. So we will increase the incentives to the agents and optimize the mechanism to improve their sales and to intensify them. And we have established the mechanism that they are from the backline support, the frontline. The staff serve the agents so that the customer-oriented strategy is fully implemented. This is an upgrade of our strategy. The second is we'll follow a high-quality and internally motivated growth path. After I come to NCI, we have put a higher emphasis and importance to value. We not only emphasize the business quality but also the business structure. The business quality indicators have been improved this year. We cannot release the data of this year. But I can say that the trends are improving. So with the guidance of incentives, we can embark on the internally motivated and high-quality growth.
We also emphasize the culture and the spiritual heritage. We emphasize serving the national economy and the rural revitalization. We will serve the country's development with a strong financial performance. We hope the publicity of models inside our company will bring positive atmosphere and momentum to the growth. We believe the sunshine will let the shadows and the positive energy will grow the business, which is in line with Mr. Wang Lianwen that has mentioned. We believe the lack of strategy and culture, the improvement of our working philosophy will solve real problems. We have made several assets. We have opened the secretary mills. The management team can closely understand and know the basic daily operation management issues. For the asset allocation, we have our strategic asset allocation strategy and our unique understanding. We will make up for our weakness and grow our competitiveness.
NCI has a lot of advantages. Just now, I've talked a lot about that. How can we release our potentials and advantages? After I came to NCI, I know that NCI is volatile. Most of our staffs are ambitious. I will further light the vigor of the agent team. We will strengthen the basic management. I think this is not only an issue facing NCI. It's an issue facing the whole industry. In the past, the fast and extensive growth of the industry has brought some problems such as the fake policies, fake agents, etc. We will strengthen our management and have a more scientific and meticulous management and have better financial control of our fees and reduce costs. Also, we will optimize the resource allocation.
We will leave to the professional and market-oriented philosophy to fully motivate the staff and agents so that the company will have new vigor. I think the financial industry should be traditional as well as modern. We should be professional and market-oriented. We should have allocation to the AI and the big data. We will introduce serious projects that face the company's development. I think we will be both stable and innovative. The management team will unite our efforts to present sound business performance to our customers, our shareholders, as well as our staff. Thank you for the Chairman. This will be the end of the QA session. Last, I would like to respond to the questions frequently asked. First is, will we increase the PR ratio of the company's distribution channel ratios?
It's in line with the requirement of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The articles of the company, we will take into consideration the operation, investment circumstances, as well as the shareholders' expectations about the PR ratio to consider the PR ratio. We will set. The second is the insurance technology has developed rapidly. What is the IT expense share for the company in 2023? Will investment be increased in the next 3-5 years? The company attaches importance to the important role of financial technology in the progress of business development. In the next 3-5 years, the company will follow the lead of digital channel strategy, combine the high-quality development with digital intelligent applications, strive to make greater breakthroughs in this field. Last, thank you for your attention to NCI. This is the end of the announcement. Thank you.