TOKYO, April 22 (Reuters) - Japan Post Insurance plans to trim its investment in Japanese government bonds in the current financial year compared with the prior year as it seeks higher returns by buying more corporate and regional bonds, a senior company official said on Friday.
"We'll focus our investments on buying the super-long sectors of JGBs. On top of that, we want to invest in regional and corporate bonds to seek higher returns," Mitsuya Watanabe, general manager at the insurer's investment planning section, told Reuters in an interview.
Japan Post Insurance, also known as Kampo Insurance, plans to invest a total of 7.1 trillion yen ($86.75 billion) in the financial year that began on April 1, little changed from the previous year, Watanabe said.
Of the total, 5.3 trillion yen will go into JGBs in 2011/12, down 500 billion from last year, while it plans to raise its investment in municipal and corporate bonds by 500 billion yen to 1.8 trillion yen, Watanabe said.
State-owned Japan Post's insurance arm holds 95.75 trillion yen ($1.16 trillion) in assets under management, bigger than Australia's economy, which is the world's 13th largest. ($1 = 81.845 Japanese Yen) (Reporting by Chikafumi Hodo; Editing by Edmund Klamann)