China's PICC Group, a leading Chinese insurer, said Wednesday that it would continue to expand into the rural market in 2010, drawing on the government policies for rural development.

Wu Yan, chairman of the Group, said PICC would grasp the golden opportunity created by the central government's plan to promote rural insurance.

By the end of 2009, PICC had covered crops and poultry worth 257.6 billion yuan (37.7 billion U.S. dollars), and paid 4.86 billion yuan in claims to 10.5 million rural households, he said.

The new rural pension scheme and the reform of forestry tenure would provide great opportunities for tapping the rural insurance market, Wu said.

China has a vast rural population, of which only a small fraction has joined pension programs.