(Yicai Global) Sept. 20 -- China Investment Corporation, the country's sovereign wealth fund, posted a loss for last year, stymied by a sharp drop in global markets as growth in the world economy slowed.

CIC's net return on overseas investment was -2.35 percent in the year ended December, the Beijing-based fund said today. That still outperformed the benchmark by about 371 basis points.

The fund's overseas investments have achieved an annual net return of 6.07 percent over the past decade, about 45 basis points above its 10-year performance target. Of this, CIC's net return on offshore investment in 2017 was 17.59 percent in dollar terms, a record high.

As of Dec. 31, open-market stocks, fixed returns, other assets and cash accounted for 38.3 percent, 15.2 percent, 44.1 percent and 2.4 percent of CIC's overseas investment portfolio. The proportion of US stocks in the open market was 53.5 percent, while non-US equities accounted for 33.2 percent, and newly emerging stocks and others stood at 13.3 percent.

CIC was set up in September 2007 with capital of USD200 billion. By the end of 2018, its assets had reached USD940.6 billion, with net assets of USD858.8 billion. Since inception, the total annual value-added rate of its state-owned capital was 13.46 percent.

In the management of domestic equities, the 17 shareholding and controlling institutions under Central Huijin Investment, a wholly owned unit of CIC, have a solid track record, with net profit up 3.1 percent year on year. Their total assets stood at CNY123 trillion (USD17.35 trillion), with net profit of CNY10.2 trillion, up 6 percent and 9 percent, on an annual basis.

By the end of last year, Central Huijin Investment managed state-owned financial capital worth CNY4.3 trillion, accounting for nearly 40 percent of such capital at the central level.