China's brokerage firm reports 101 percent profit

BEIJING: Citic Securities, China's biggest brokerage firm, has reported a net profit of 2.522 billion yuan ($360.34 million) in the first quarter, up 101 percent year on year, said on Monday's Shanghai Securities News (SSN).

Total assets of the brokerage rose to 219.25 billion yuan ($31.27 billion) up 15.60 percent from the end of last year. Net earning per share was 0.76 yuan, up 81 percent year on year, SSN said.

A report by China Galaxy Securities said that although the daily average trading volume on the country's stock markets climbed down from last year's 180 billion yuan to 150 billion from January to mid-April, domestic brokerages have still showed rapid growth in income from transaction fee.

Transaction fee income of Citic Securities in the first quarter stood at 4.238 billion yuan, up 72.6 percent year on year.

A report from Tianxiang Investment Consulting April 24 said the share trading taxes measures could help lift the transaction fees of domestic brokerages by more than 10 percent.

The announcement of a cut in share trading taxes from 0.3 percent to 0.1 drove Chinese stocks 9.29 percent higher last Thursday, with the combined turnover hitting 263 billion yuan, twice that of last on Wednesday.