General Insurance Corporation plans to tap professional institutions like Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Management for young managers after cutting flab through a voluntary retirement scheme in the next fiscal.

"We are planning to tap IITs and IIMs for new recruits. We need aggressive managers who would be able to increase our business in India and abroad," GIC managing director P B Ramanujam told PTI in New Delhi.

The national reinsurer is in the process of drawing up a VRS for reducing about 10 per cent of its staff.

Ramanujam did not give details but said GIC now has excess manpower after it transferred its crop insurance business to the Agriculture Insurance Corporation of India, formed last year.

While shedding its excess staff, GIC would be on the look out for young blood.

The demand for professionals arose after the reinsurer decided to spread its wings to new emerging markets like Dubai, Malaysia and China.

GIC has plans to increase its foreign inward business significantly.

At present, GIC's total premium income was at Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion), which was expected to touch Rs 4,500 crore (Rs 45 billion) by the fiscal year end of 2003-04.

Of the total business, Rs 3,100 crore (Rs 31 billion) comes from the domestic market and Rs 900 crore (Rs 9 billion) from international markets.

The company now plans to increase its foreign business significantly by tapping the Afro-Asian markets.

GIC has already opened offices in London and Moscow. The reinsurer now plans to open its third foreign office in Dubai by the first quarter of next fiscal.

GIC is also planning to open representative office in China and Malaysia, Ramanujam said.

The company has shortlisted two companies for sponsoring the UAE venture and a final selection would be made by the end of this month.

For China, GIC intends to open a representative office first and then look for a joint venture.

The company has presence in Kenya, Tanzania and Singapore through joint ventures with PSU insurers and local companies.

GIC, which was converted into the national reinsurer last year, has now taken a stance to cover risks in developing nations that were withdrawn by reinsurers of developed nations.

In the domestic market, the company will shortly start reinsuring business of life insurers as well.