In early June I gave a keynote speech at a US-China investment conference alongside John Kerry in his capacity of chairman of the U.S. Senate Council on Foreign Relations and the vice-chair of Lazard.

In the panel discussion with Kerry two of the larger themes were around retirement investing as well as competition and cooperation between China and the US.

On the question of retirement investing, we typically discuss the 401k or Superannuation system as a prerequisite for a thriving mutual fund industry. And indeed, Europe under the leadership of Efama recently put out a paper on the topic arguing for a regional long-term savings vehicle.

Kerry argued that the US will face a number of challenges for the defined contribution system in the future with meaningful structural changes to maintain its purpose and to remain relevant. I raised the issue of many industry experts arguing that DC is needed in Asia and China to turn speculators into investors and create a sustainable industry, but Kerry answered that China could use the lack of such a system as of today to its advantage and create a system from scratch that avoids all existing pitfalls and uses the countries growth to set up a forward looking retirement industry that accounts for cultural differences.

Our view for some time has been that instead of looking at developed markets and what can be adopted, emerging economies and especially China as the fastest growing market in the world can take leadership in defining how systems can be designed to account for investment preferences and asset allocation mindsets of the East to lead the way into a “new normal”.

More details on the panels and keynote speeches from the Chinese asset managers will follow soon.