CHINA'S social security fund has earned 132.6 billion yuan (US$20.9 billion) from the stock market over the past eight years, which translated to an annual net return of 18 percent.

"The return from the stock market has big fluctuations but as a long term investment it still has a better return than fixed asset investment if stocks are bought at a reasonable price," the National Council for Social Security Fund said in a report released in Beijing yesterday.

The 18 percent annual net return earned from the stock market is on average 10 percentage points higher than from other investment options, the report added. For the past eight years, stock assets took up 46 percent of total investment return, and about one-fifth of the total fund assets were from stocks.

Its portfolio comprised 50 percent in fixed assets, one-third in stocks and one-fifth in companies last year.