BEIJING - The average yield for China's enterprise annuity funds stood at 8.3 percent last year, with the aggregate investment return reaching 125.8 billion yuan ($17.7 billion), Shanghai Securities News reported Thursday.

The figure outperformed that in 2018, which stood at 42 billion yuan with an average yield of 3.01 percent, the report said, quoting data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

By the end of last year, the total amount of the enterprise annuity funds neared 1.8 trillion yuan, covering around 25.48 million employees.

China Life Pension Company, Pingan Pension and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China ranked the top three in terms of the assents under their management.

Having logged remarkable growth since 2013, annuity funds have become an important force in China's old-age security system, said the report.

China launched the enterprise annuity program in 2004, a supplemental occupational pension insurance offered through employers, in a bid to improve its social security system.