The China Insurance Regulatory Commission's Shanghai branch says the city wants to become an international insurance center by 2020 through opening up and innovation.

This goal is based on the fruitful results in insurance it has seen over the past five years, during which time it developed a modern market for insurance, reinsurance, insured assets management, and insurance intermediaries.

The announcement came from the Shanghai branch's head, Pei Guang, at an insurance forum in the city on April 6, where he explained that, by the end of 2015, the city had 125 insurance companies, 55 of them with headquarters there, putting it in second place in the country.

It also has many insurance leaders, for example the Shanghai Shipping Insurance Association, China's first organization of its kind, the Shanghai Insurance Exchange, the China Insurance Investment Fund, Pacific Pension Investment Management Co, and the China Pacific Insurance Co's Allianz Health Insurance Co.

So, the insurance sector has seen significant progresses. At the same time, the city had 28 foreign-funded insurance companies, putting it in first place in the country, and it had given export credit insurance to over $100-billion  cargo exports. Hence, the city's insurance authorities plan on building the industry over the next five years, which is expected to help the city's ultimate goal of becoming a global finance center.