New safety record for Southern Airlines

China Southern Airlines has recorded 169 consecutive months of safe flight operations, a domestic industry record, said a Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) senior official on Wednesday.

The carrier had accumulated 5 million safe flying hours as of June 16and carried 250 million passengers safely, said Li Jiaxiang, CAAC director, when presenting the company with a flight safety award.

In accordance with the CAAC regulations issued in 2006, it would give flight safety awards to carriers based upon the amount of safe flight hours they kept consecutively.

The Guangzhou-based company currently has a fleet of 342 aircraft and approximately 1,400 daily domestic and international flights. It carried nearly 57 million passengers last year, ranked first in Asia and fourth globally.

The industry watchdog has been placing higher priority on safety and flight reliability in recent years.

The country's other two top carriers are Air China and China Eastern.

Overheat in investment-linked insurance warned

Chinese insurers should pay more attention to overheating risk arising from the rapid development of investment-linked insurance products, regulators said.

Data from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) show that investment-linked products contributed up to 79 percent of the country's life insurance premium income in the first half.

The CIRC said in a statement that insurers should enhance their solvency in order to guard against a possible downturn.

According to the CIRC, a total of 12 insurance companies - against 10 from the beginning of the year - had a solvency ratio of less than 100 percent at the end of June, partly due to the turbulence in global stock markets.

Insurers with insufficient solvency levels will be restricted from expanding their business and paying dividends to shareholders, the CIRC said.