CEO Nik Amlizan Mohamed said KWAP’s current gross fund size amounted to more than RM175 billion.

She told reporters this during a visit by deputy finance minister Ahmad Maslan to the retirement fund here today.

Chief investment officer Hazman Hilmi Sallahuddin said KWAP will remain aggressive in its investment deployment this year.

“Generally, the market has been very tough this year. We were quite positive about the opening of China and then suddenly the banking crisis emerged.

“So, we foresee it’s going to be a challenging year but having said that we are optimistic about the second half of this year,” he said, adding that KWAP’s 2023 investment strategy will not be affected by the challenges.

“We hope the market will improve. We were quite aggressive in terms of investment last year, and we foresee the same this year,” he noted.

Meanwhile, Ahmad said KWAP will heighten its preparedness programmes under the MyPesara initiatives.

Currently, there are 770,000 recipients under KWAP, with 73% pensioners and 27% being beneficiaries who receive a derivative pension.

KWAP has lined up 17 MyPesara programmes this year to reach out to current and future recipients to raise awareness on financial and healthcare planning.

Ahmad said scam cases among pensioners are growing and there is a need to address this accordingly.

Last year, KWAP managed 26,000 pensioners and derivative recipients via its outreach programmes. It targets to reach out to about 50,000 participants this year.