China's Social Security Fund (SSF) saw its assets rise in value by 34 percent last year -- from 212 billion yuan (27 billion US dollars) to 283 billion yuan (36 billion US dollars) on the back of strong investment gains, fund managers said in their annual report published on Friday.

The SSF is governed by a national council. Its assets mainly come from cash injections from the government and capital and equity assets acquired from offloading State-owned shares.

Fund managers, while remaining cautious, kept their eye on the stock markets last year. Bank deposits went down by 6.8 percent over 2005 as a share of the SSF's assets to 95 billion yuan while equity assets soared 150 percent to 34 billion yuan.

Short-term bonds crept up by 1 percent to 199 billion yuan while long-term bonds dipped 0.6 percent to 12.7 billion yuan. Mandated investments represented the sum of 106 billion yuan, up 45 percent on the previous year.

The fund racked up investment gains of 62 billion yuan in 2006, at a yield of 29 percent.

The fund's debt totaled 5.8 billion yuan at the end of 2006, down 65 percent on the previous year.

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