UK - The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) has issued a guide for pension funds on how to monitor fund manager engagement in China.

The trustee guide ‘Labour Standards In China: Best Practice Guidelines' includes indicators for measuring the effectiveness for managing employment risks and opportunities in companies with operations in China.

With the guide, the Forum hopes to provide pension funds with the background knowledge to talk to their fund managers about engagement in China, its effectiveness and quality.

In the 26-page guide also questions are provided which trustees can ask their fund manager in order to improve possibly the fund's current investment strategy.

Furthermore, the paper mentions several points on labour law and work conditions trustees should be looking out for when investing in a company that operates in China.

"China is only going to expand in importance for many of the companies that the Forum's members are invested in," said Darrell Pulk, chair of the LAPFF. 

"That brings with it a whole raft of new governance and social responsibility issues for pension funds and their investment managers. This guide is intended to help trustees get up to speed on the crucial question of labour standards."

The guide can be downloaded for free on the LAPFF website on  http://www.lapfforum.org/pubs/trustee_guides/index.html together with other trustee guides on topics like shareholder engagement.

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