Citic Securities, the country's biggest brokerage, said its net profit stood at 2.522 billion yuan (360.34 million U.S. dollars) in the first quarter, up 101.03 percent year on year, said Monday's Shanghai Securities News.

Total assets of the brokerage rose to 219.25 billion yuan, up 15.60 percent from the end of last year.

Net earnings was 0.76 yuan per share, up 81.1 percent year on year.

A report by China Galaxy Securities said that although the daily average trading volume on the country's stock markets dwindled from last year's 180 billion yuan to 150 billion yuan from January to mid-April, domestic brokerages have still gained rapid growth in transaction fee income.

Transaction fee income of CITIC Securities in the first quarter stood at 4.238 billion yuan, up 72.6 percent year on year.

A report from the country's Tianxiang Investment Consulting on April 24 said the share trading taxes measures could help lift the transaction fees of domestic brokerages by more than 10 percent. The overnight announcement of a cut in share trading taxes from 0.3 percent to 0.1 drove Chinese stocks 9.29 percent higher last Thursday, with the combined turnover hitting 263 billion yuan, twice that of last Wednesday.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2008)