Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China announced on Tuesday its net profit is likely to jump more than 100 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2007.

The country's second largest life insurer said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange that the investment earnings rises and growth of insurance and banking businesses contributed to its profit increase.

The Shenzhen-based insurance firm said its net profit stood at 3.945 billion yuan (US$ 521.0 million) in the first six months of last year. The earnings per share reached 0.64 yuan when its total capital was 6.195 billion shares before the initial public offering of 1.15 billion shares in the first half of the year.

China's double digit economic expansion has pushed the insurance premiums to record huge growth.

Chinese insurance firms saw first half premiums from original insurance contracts jump by 20.7 percent year-on-year to 371.83 billion yuan (US$ 49.1 billion), the China Insurance Regulatory Commission announced.

The Chinese government has recently raised the insurers' investment cap in domestic stock markets from five to ten percent of their assets to let them cash in on more higher earnings investment opportunities on the stock markets.

Share price of Ping An Insurance slumped 0.91 percent to finish morning trade at 82.70 yuan on Tuesday.

(Xinhua News Agency July 24  2007)