GERMANY - Germany’s health and social security minister Ulla Schmidt has said that German life insurers expect to sell four million Riester private pension schemes this year.

According to the German government’s social security department, Schmidt told journalists that by the end of the year private insurance companies expected to sell around four million Riester schemes, named after labour minister Walter Riester.

She again ruled out making schemes compulsory for now. She was speaking at a news conference to mark the first year of Germany’s private pension reforms.