Ping An Insurance (Group) Company, a leading Chinese life insurers, saw its net profits soaring 79.3 percent to 5.99 billion yuan (777.9 million U.S. dollars) last year, according to the company's annual report released on Thursday.

Ping An's returns on investment, including earnings from interests, amounted to 22.36 billion yuan (2.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2006, a growth of 129 percent over the previous year. Its earnings per share stood at 0.81 yuan.

Earnings from its major business increased by 21.3 percent to 81.7 billion yuan (10.6 billion U.S. dollars), including 69 billion yuan (9 billion U.S. dollars) in premiums for life insurance, up 17.2 percent.

By the end of 2006, Ping An Insurance recorded 441.79 billion yuan (57.4 billion U.S. dollars) in gross assets and 36.67 billion yuan (4.8 billion U.S. dollars) in shareholders' equities.

Ma Mingzhe, chairman of the Ping An Insurance, said the company was planning to expand into the banking and assets management sectors.

Source: Xinhua