Poll: Only 8.9% of Czechs interested in pension funds

Prague, Nov 1 (CTK) - Only 8.9 percent of Czechs in economically productive age want to enter the second pension pillar, which counts with transferring some money from the state pay-as-you-go system to individual accounts with private pension funds, according to a STEM/MARK poll released yesterday.

On the contrary, almost 75 percent of people are not interested in it, and the rest does not know about this possibility yet, shows the poll that the STEM/MARK agency conducted for the AWD consulting firm.

Inhabitants of towns express more interest in the second pension pillar than those living in villages, according to the poll.

However, it is not sure yet whether the state will launch it at all.

The government planned to introduce the second pension pillar as from 2013. But President Vaclav Klaus vetoed its implementing bill and returned it to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, for reappraisal.

Now the government coalition must find sufficient support in the Chamber of Deputies to outvote the veto.

"The interest in the second pillar has been lukewarm so far. It is advantageous only for the people with a quite high income or those whose retirement is still a long way off. However, hardly anyone fulfills both conditions," AWD man analyst Tomas Rampula said.

He added that he expected people's interest in saving in private pension funds to rise after the passage of the respective legislation.

Under the pension reform bill, people will be able to transfer 3 percent of their social insurance, now amounting to 28 percent of the gross salary, to individual accounts with private pension companies under the condition that they add 2 percent from their own money.

The second pillar is voluntarily but it will not be possible to withdraw from it.

The STEM/MARK conducted the poll on almost 1000 respondents in October.