The Report published CIC's overseas portfolio, investment performance, and financial report as of December 31, 2015. It also provided detailed information on CIC's corporate governance, corporate culture and core values, investment strategy and management, risk management, human resources and global outreach.

In his message, Mr. Ding Xuedong, Chairman and CEO, pointed out that 2015 was a challenging year for both the global economy and CIC. The economic recovery continued on a sluggish path, big fluctuations reverberated in the international financial market, and competition in the investment industry became ever fiercer. Against this backdrop, CIC prudently coped with challenges by exploring new business opportunities and refining its corporate governance, thereby renewing progress in overseas investment and management.

The Report shows that as of the end of 2015, CIC's total assets surpassed $810 billion and the annualized growth rate of state-owned capital had reached 15.30% since CIC' inception. Due to volatilities in international financial markets and foreign exchange losses triggered by an appreciating US dollar, CIC's overseas investments generated a dollar-denominated net return of -2.96% in 2015 and a net cumulative annualized return of 4.58% since CIC's inception. In CIC's global investment portfolio, public equity, fixed income, absolute return, long-term investments, and cash and others accounted for 47.47%, 14.44%, 12.67%, 22.16%, 3.26% respectively.

In 2015, based on the evolvements of global investment landscape and its business needs, CIC put emphasis on the fundamental work including streamlining organization structure, refining portfolio construction, and standardizing operations and management.

On investment structure, we launched our specialized direct investment platform, CIC Capital Corporation (CIC Capital). The overseas investment and management activities of CIC are now undertaken by CIC International Co., Ltd. and CIC Capital, while Central Huijin Investment Ltd. makes equity investments in key state-owned financial institutions in China as authorized to preserve and enhance the value of state-owned financial assets. CIC continued to revamp its internal management framework with a modern corporate governance system to ensure a more clear-cut, professional and targeted division of labor.

On investment management, CIC assigns priority to constructing a simple, transparent, and resilient portfolio. To this end, we introduced into the allocation framework the Reference Portfolio. For public market investment, we regularly improved our in-house investment platforms and capabilities. Our quantitative in-house investment platform was built, and a number of internally managed portfolios posted desirable return. Namely, The Internally Managed Global Large-Cap Value Equity Portfolio's excess return and information ratio exceed the benchmark for CIC's global active equity strategy. Compared with international peers, the three-year excess return of this portfolio ranked among the top 10%, and the information ratio among the top 5%. For long-term asset investment, we ramped up investments in assets that generate stable returns such as real estate and infrastructure. In partnership with other institutional and industrial investors, we undertook a number of infrastructure investment projects, including Tank & Rast, Germany's largest owner and concessionaire of motorway service areas, and Kumport, the third largest container port in Turkey. To date, CIC has made over 40 real estate investments in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania and established a satisfactory track record over the years. Moreover, we constantly strengthened the post-investment management of direct investment projects and also prudently pared down or exited some investments and, hence, generated an inflow of approximately $10.6 billion. In the meantime, we continued to explore investment projects from a Chinese angle and established a presence in emerging industries with promising growth prospects. We also tapped into our private equity fund network to boost relevant investments.

On investment support, we revised and rationalized our investment decision-making and management system. We enforced rigorously project due diligence and the Investment Manager Accountability System and strived to put in place a multi-layered research system. We upgraded the supporting mechanism to overall portfolio management and elevated investment management and decision-making efficiency. We also improved our comprehensive risk management system and strengthened risk warning and monitoring. Specifically, we enhanced operational risk evaluation, project valuation, attribution analysis, and quantitative risk analysis. Meanwhile, we replenished our talent pool for investment departments and strived to build a team of high-caliber professionals by conducting 112 training programs on professional expertise and management skills with the participation of 854 individuals and 2,800 days of training in cumulative terms in 2015. We advanced the Position Mapping Program, the Competency Model, and the Career Planning Program. We also established the Cost Accounting and Payment Management System, which covers the entire financial management process. This has enhanced the enforcement, monitoring, and management of our budget. Likewise we continued to strengthen the operational system and optimize the information technology system.

On investment cooperation, as a sovereign wealth fund, CIC actively leveraged its global networks and professional platforms to expand investment cooperation. Through industry review and analysis, visits to enterprises, and field investigations, CIC established contacts with more than 100 domestic and overseas enterprises that have cross-border investment plans. Moreover, we carried out over 10 cooperation projects with leading enterprises in key industries and actively developed new ways to promote cooperation between the real economy and the financial sector. This cooperation strategy was fostered over time, which not only reaped good returns for CIC, but also lent vigorous support to domestic and overseas enterprises in their global development.

On global outreach, at the 2015 annual meeting of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (the "Forum") held in Milan, Italy, the CIC delegation participated in decision-making on key issues related to the Forum's governance and development and played a constructive role in the sound development of the Forum. During the meeting, the then Vice Chairman, President, and Chief Investment Officer of CIC, Mr. Li Keping was elected member of the new Board of Directors by members of the Forum. CIC also carried out a self-evaluation on the implementation of the 24 Generally Accepted Principles and Practices, known as the Santiago Principles. The evaluation results showed that CIC is characterized by openness and transparency and has honored its solemn commitment to the Santiago Principles.

On future development, Chairman Ding noted that the world economy is currently undergoing profound adjustment in the wake of the financial crisis. 2016 is likely to be another year of sluggish growth, coupled with subdued inflation, low productivity, and lackluster trade. Policies in major economies may continue to diverge. Such a macroeconomic environment betokens declining returns on asset investment and increasing volatilities, making long-term return objectives more difficult to meet for institutional investors. However, it is noteworthy that major developed economies have recently achieved moderate growth or recovery, and a few emerging markets, including China, enjoy sound prospects. Global outbound direct investment has soared, and cross-border mergers and acquisitions have been growing by leaps and bounds. Infrastructure, innovative industries, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing are emerging as hotspots for global investment; international cooperation on production capacity is set to become the new driver for the global economy and for reshaping international industry systems and may serve as a powerful engine for cross-border investments. Against this backdrop, CIC stands ready to join hands with competitive domestic and overseas enterprises to explore and seize quality investment opportunities globally. We will actively explore cross-border investment models that are based on complementarity and win-win cooperation.

Chairman Ding quotes in his message a Chinese poem that goes, "Honing gives a sharp edge to the sword, Bitter cold adds fragrance to the plum blossom". We at CIC remain adamant in our commitment to seeking maximum returns for our shareholder and to diversifying China's foreign exchange holdings in a world that is in flux and full of complexities and challenges. In the year ahead, we will remain true to our mission and will forge ahead with greater passion, professionalism, dedication, and synergy to make new progress towards becoming a world-class and respected sovereign wealth fund.

Please refer to Annual Report 2015 for more information.