Japan's Pension Fund Association for Local Government Officials, or Chikyoren, has announced it has hired Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking to manage its global infrastructure investments.

The amount the company will manage for the fund has not been disclosed.

The Tokyo-based pension fund manages funds of around JPY20.6 trillion (US$204 billion). The latest allocation marks the pension fund's second to global infrastructure.

The pension fund has made allocations this year:

• Resona Bank in March and Nomura Asset Management in June were hire to manage domestic real estate.
• UBS Asset Management was hired in July to manage global real estate. 
• J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPM) was hired also in July for global infrastructure. 

We have recently announced that Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Limited made a commitment to invest JPY10 billion (US$99 million) as seed money to the Cosmic Blue PF Trust Lily, an infrastructure debt fund which invests in overseas infrastructure project finance.

In May 2016, we reported that Nippon Life Insurance Company also set aside JPY 40 billion (US$375.5 million) for new commitments to infrastructure equity funds.