South Korea's state pension fund posted a profit of more than 20 trillion won ($16.8 billion) in the first 10 months of 2015 on increased earnings from bond and stock investments, official data showed Tuesday.

The National Pension Service (NPS) said its profit reached 20.8 trillion won in the January-October period, with the rate of return standing at 4.24 percent.

The profit doesn't take into account premiums paid by people who will receive pensions after they retire.

The bulk of the profit, or 10.5 trillion won, came from investments made in state and corporate debts at home and abroad, with 7.2 trillion won coming from stock earnings. Alternative investments, in such areas as real estate, energy and infrastructure, generated 2.3 trillion won in profit for the fund.

Since its creation in 1988, the NPS' accumulative profit has amounted to 232.5 trillion won, with the return rate averaging 6 percent during the period.

The pension service said it had 507 trillion won under its management as of October, up 7.9 percent, or 37.2 trillion won, from late 2014.

Broken down by holdings, 53.1 percent of assets worth more than 268.7 trillion won were in domestic bonds, with 19.1 percent being locally traded stocks. Domestic alternative investments made up 4.3 percent of the total, with foreign shares and bonds taking up 13.5 percent and 4.3 percent of the NPS' holdings portfolio, respectively.

Compared with late 2014, holdings in domestic stocks edged up 1.3 percentage points, while investment in local bonds moved down 2.4 percentage points, it said.

All investments made abroad reached 118.6 trillion won as of late October, up 1.6 percentage points from late 2014.

The NPS, meanwhile, said the numbers are provisional with more detailed data to be sent to the pension fund steering committee for review. (Yonhap)