China's Social Security Fund (SSF) saw a 24 percent increase in its asset value from 171.149 billion yuan (21.3 billion U.S. dollars) to 211.787 billion yuan (26.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005, the manager of the fund said in its annual report published on Monday.

The net value of the SSF increased by 29.44 billion yuan, including an allocation of 22.87 billion yuan from the national coffers, and 5.29 billion yuan as earnings from its investments, the report said.

The SSF is governed by a national council which is entrusted by the State Council to run the national pension fund.

Assets of the SSF mainly come from injections of funds from the treasury and capital and equity assets acquired from the offloading of state-owned shares.

Of the SSF's assets, 102.125 billion yuan are bank deposits, 12.736 billion yuan are long-term bonds, 197.5 million yuan are short-term bonds, 73.03 billion yuan are mandated investments, 13.68 billion yuan are equity assets, the report said.

The total returns of SSF's investments in 2005 is 5.29 billion yuan, representing a return rate of 3.12 percent.

The SSF had a total debt of 16.36 billion yuan by the end of 2005, the report said.

Source: Xinhua