China Investment Corp (CIC), the nation's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, made a profit of $10 billion in 2008, despite the bearish stock markets around the world.

That would put CIC's annual return at 5 percent, whereas a number of sovereign funds have seen their asset holdings shrink, Shanghai Securities News quoted an unnamed source as saying.

CIC had invested $90 billion in highly liquid assets including treasury bonds and bank notes, which yielded $3 billion in pre-tax profit last year.