Almost Agreement Government And Pension Funds

The government has almost an agreement with the pension funds on investments in the Dutch economy. Most probably this agreement will lead to the formation of a national mortgage bank, where pension funds can take over mortgages of Dutch banks. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Minister of Finance, confirmed that talks are now being finalized "at breakneck speed" Tuesday the parties were together for the last meeting at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The government wants to entice pension funds to invest more in energy projects or regional infrastructure. The funds now have only 14 percent of their total capacity of around 960 billion invested in the Netherlands. If the national mortgage bank really comes, Dijsselbloem could not answer yet on Wednesday. The House will be the first to hear this. “But we're at a pace that it might happen quickly.” Figures from the Dutch Central Bank showed, on Tuesday, that pension funds have invested 135 billion in the Netherlands. From this amount, 12.7 billion euro is invested in Dutch mortgages and € 1 billion in small and medium-sized enterprises. The government want the pension funds to invest much more in the Netherlands. Pension funds have already indicated that they want to invest more in things like infrastructure, housing and pensions in order to contribute to the economic recovery. But they want the government to take some of the risks on its behalf.