South Korea's state pension fund posted a return rate of over 4 percent through September on robust performances in domestic and overseas stock markets, its operator said Friday.

The state pension fund registered a 4.17 percent investment return at the end of September, according to the National Pension Service (NPS).

It chalked up a 8.47 percent investment return from the local stock market and a 3.28 percent yield from investments in overseas stocks.

The fund's return rates from investment in domestic and foreign bonds reached 2.69 percent and 6.01 percent, respectively, while the yield for alternative asset investments came to 3.94 percent.

"(The NPS) logged profits despite the uncertain global economy amid the COVID-19 outbreak," the operator said. "The domestic and global stock markets recovered in the third quarter as major economies rolled out stimulus and monetary easing measures to cope with the pandemic fallout."

Last year, the NPS posted a record yield of 11.3 percent.

The NPS, one of the world's leading pension funds, had 785.4 trillion won ($711.7 billion) in assets under its management as of end-September, up 48.8 trillion won from the end of 2019. (Yonhap)