China Life Insurance Company Limited, the country's largest life insurer, said Sunday its first-quarter net profit plummeted 60.9 percent year on year on slumps of its stock investment returns.

The insurer's net profit in the first three months stood at 3.47 billion yuan (about 496 million U.S. dollars), or 0.12 yuan per share, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Sunday night.

It attributed the profit plunge to the sharply lower returns from its investment in the country's stock market, whose major index had shed more than 43 percent by Friday from its peak in October.

The shares of 10 listed firms China Life invested in saw their total value shrink by 30.4 percent to 56.9 billion yuan in the first three months, said the company.

Its insurance premiums soared 39.5 percent to 101.6 billion yuan, with revenues from insurance businesses up 38.3 percent to 102.2 billion yuan, due to strengthened promotion and increased domestic demand, said the company.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2008)