Net profits for China's securities firms increased almost four-fold to hit 137.65 billion yuan (19.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2007, according to statistics from Securities Association of China (SAC).

SAC's 106 member firms recorded a total revenue of 329.9 billion yuan, an increase of 258.74 billion yuan from a year ago.

Their total assets valued 1,897.3 billion yuan, representing an increase of 1.72 times, or 1,200 billion yuan, over that of in 2006.

Leading securities firms maintained their domination in profit-earning. The 20 biggest firms gained 89.8 billion yuan in net profits, accounting for 65.3 percent of the total.

CITIC Securities, the country's largest securities firm, showed a five-fold increase in net profit to 12.39 billion yuan in 2007. GF Securities ranked the second, with net profit set to hit 7.6 billion yuan.

Small and medium-sized securities firms also had heavy profits in 2007. Tianfeng Securities, Lianhe Securities, and Fortune Securities saw their profits soaring by more than 85 times year on year.

Market analysts attribute this to the prosperous Chinese share market in 2007, when the Shanghai composite index rose 96.66 percent and the Shenzhen index increased 1.66 times year on year. The combined turnover of the two markets hit an all-time high of 4.69 trillion yuan.

(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2008)