NETHERLANDS - The Dutch trade association of private insurance companies and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) are to join forces to analyse Dutch pension liabilities.

The association's centre for insurance statistics (CVS) has agreed to deliver the data from its members, Dutch private insurers, about pension liabilities in the second and third pillar.

The CBS will gather the data from pension funds and deliver them to the CVS.

Both will put the data sets together and analyse the information to get a view of the total pension liabilities in the Netherlands - with results expected at the end of next year.

The cooperation follows after CBS approached CVS, as CBS wanted to have an insight into the insurer's statistics.

As about 95% of insurers are members of the trade association, CBS has a simple overview of almost the entire Dutch insurance market and the pension liabilities.

Gosse van der Veen, CBS' director general, and Leo de Boer, director of CVS, signed an agreement earlier this month about the collaboration with regards to the pension liabilities.

This is the first cooperation on such a scale between the two bodies - a spokesman for CVS said that further cooperation in the future is not unthinkable.

Meanwhile, the Dutch institute for housing and planning (Nirov) is concerned about the exodus of large investors such as pension funds.
 
Nirov director Fred Schrool sees a trend in which for instance pension funds are turning away from the Dutch market place: "They are running away from the Netherlands and they are taking the money abroad."
 
Schrool calls for a taskforce or programme to encourage investors to invest in the Netherlands again.
 
Earlier this month it appeared in a study by Statistics Netherlands that two-thirds of Dutch institutional assets are now invested abroad.