The net value of investment funds, growing by leaps and bounds in China, has reached a record 850 billion yuan (US$10.9 billion) by the end of 2006, according to a leading provider of Chinese financial data known as WIND.

WIND says investment funds grew by 82.26 percent over the previous year. By the end of 2006, China's securities investment funds had issued 620.8 billion units, up 31.68 percent year on year.

Open-ended funds investing mainly in stocks led the growth in 2006 with a year-on-year rise of 93.39 percent to 218 billion units. Straight bond-type funds also grew by 196 percent to 9.97 billion units.

According to WIND, the redemption ratio of short-term bond funds and money market funds reached 66 percent and 56 percent respectively, indicating that capital flew in large quantities from the bond and money markets to the stock market.

Strong performance on the Chinese stock market has drawn in more speculation and the market value reached more than 8.8 trillion yuan (about 1.14 trillion U.S. dollars) till Friday.