Social Security Fund, the nation's largest pension fund, will have more than 100 billion yuan to invest in 2007, according to Xiang Huaicheng, chairman of the National Council for Social Security Fund (SSF), the China Economic Weekly reported.

"A good part of bank deposits will reach maturity, and together with new funds coming in, the SSF in 2007 is expected to have over 100 billion yuan to invest," Xiang said in an interview with the magazine.

The SSF will balance its investment portfolio among mainland's A shares, Hong Kong's H shares and overseas stocks, he said.

"For A shares, the SSF prefers buying those with higher return and lower risk, and we are actively engaged in applying for new shares in the initial public offering process," Xiang said.

The fund had about $1.6 billion invested abroad by the first quarter of this year.

Xiang said the SSF will strengthen its portfolio management for overseas stock investment and risk management on foreign currency assets.

The SSF managed 149.9 billion yuan at the end of the 2006.

The pension fund had a total of 19.5 billion yuan in investment income last year, representing a 9.3 percent yield, as the country's booming Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges contributed returns of more than 50 percent.

(China Daily 05/09/2007 page14)