“Looking forward, we expect strong momentum going into the third quarter.”

In context

“his market conditions. So overall, we've had positive growth in the second quarter, led by strong performance in Japan. If we look a little bit at Japan sales, we're up 5%. And that's actually driven by 3 factors. First, the execution on the ground of the team has been very strong. We have a very diversified distribution channels, and the products and capabilities we've launched in the past year has really helped us drive the growth over there. But as you pointed out in Other Asia, we've faced a couple of headwinds. We've got COVID restrictions going on in China right now, and the stronger U.S. dollar has really impacted sales for the FX products in Korea. But despite these channels, we actually have other markets that are compensating for these and help offset some of these headwinds. Looking forward, we expect strong momentum going into the third quarter. We're introducing new products in Korea. And also, we expect some relief in the lockdown conditions in China. So full year basis, we are comfortable with the guidance of mid-single year digit growth that we gave at the outlook call. Operator: And next, we go to Tom Gallagher with Evercore ISI. Thomas Gallagher: I had two capital questions. The first is the new C2 factor change that's coming year-end for mortality, morbidity. My understanding is it positively impacts Group Life, negatively affects Individual Life. If so, is that a positive for Met? And if so, could you quantify it? Ramy Tadros: Tom, it's Ramy here. I would say it's overall neutral. I mean we have been looking at our business and pricing it in anticipation of changes to the C2 factors, and there's a fair bit of diversificat”