EUROPE - The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Private Pensions Working Party is to launch a new pension supervisors association in July.

The OECD is also working on a recommendation on occupational pension regulation, which is likely to be released by the end of February. A newsletter about a global data collection project on pension assets, membership and contributions will be published in June.

The working party is chaired by Ambrogio Rinaldi, director of supervision and research at Italian pensions supervisory authority Covip, and meets twice a year.

The group aims to survey private pension systems in OECD countries and analyse related policy and technical issues. It also seeks to formulate policy recommendations and promote dialogue with non-member countries on private pension issues. It has already issued guidelines on pension fund regulation and pension fund governance.

Meanwhile, the OECD has published a book on pension reform and transition economies.

“Reforming Public Pensions: Sharing the Experiences of Transition and OECD Countries” seeks to critically appraise “the practical lessons of public pension reforms over the past decade in Central and Eastern Europe, and how they compare with reforms in other OECD member countries”.

Countries covered include the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Latvia, the Russian Federation and Lithuania, as well as Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

See: http://oecdpublications.gfi-nb.com/cgi-bin/OECDBookShop.storefront/ then "Reforming Public Pensions".