A direct overseas equity investment may test waters in Hong Kong with an initial cap of up to US$1 billion, said Xiang Huaicheng, the fund's chairman.

But any move will be subject to the central government's approval.

Meanwhile, China's aging population is calling for more pension funds. The country may need to pay pensions for an estimated 200 million people who will retire by 2035, according to World Bank estimates. The pension gap may widen to 2.5 trillion yuan due to an aging population and higher living costs, analysts and economists said.

Authorities have been adopting various measures to ease long-term pressures on its social welfare system, such as encouraging citizens to buy commercial insurance for protection and gradually allowing people to purchase overseas equities under a Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor scheme.

Selected banks and insurers were allowed last month to invest in overseas fixed-income products with their yuan-backed assets while fund managers can tap the overseas stockmarkets with their own foreign exchange assets.

The moves will make it possible for individual clients to buy a product that invests in overseas financial instruments, helping them to diversify risks and boost returns.

To further bolster the pension system, regulators now require Chinese companies with either domestic or overseas listing to transfer 10 percent of their state-held stakes to the pension fund.

Analysts said the move could largely increase the amount of the fund as a myriad of state companies is queuing to launch IPOs after regulators last month lifted a yearlong ban on first-time stock sales.

Letting the pension fund, which features a long-term investment strategy, take stakes in listed firms may also help prevent a flurry of stocks from flooding the mainland markets, which have rallied nearly 40 percent this year after a four-year slump, they said.

"Now there's a two-way approach for the government to tackle the growing pension problems," said Zhu Yan, a Bank of China manager. "It has to boost the returns of the national welfare fund while opening more investment channels for citizens."

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)