China Railway Group Ltd. said Monday its 2009 profit rocketed 517.6 percent from a year earlier to 6.89 billion yuan (1 billion U.S. dollars) on the global economic recovery.

In its annual report filed Monday night to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, China Railway, the country's largest rail-builder by market value, said the company signed 601.8 billion yuan (88.11 billion U.S. dollars) in contracts in 2009, up 40.5 percent year on year.

For 2009, the Shanghai- and Hong Kong-listed company realized an operating revenue of 345.97 billion yuan (50.65 billion U.S. dollars) with profits attributable to equity shareholders totaling 6.887 billion yuan (1 billion U.S. dollars), an upsurge of 517.6 percent from 2008 when the world economy was in the middle of global financial crisis.

Infrastructure construction contributed 542 billion yuan (79.35 billion U.S. dollars) to the company's total revenues, leaping 41.3 percent from a year ago.

Survey and design, engineering equipment and parts manufacturing, real estate development and mining made up the rest of the company's revenue growth last year, according to its annual report.

"We achieved this extraordinary results as China's economy stabilized amid the global recovery last year," Shi Dahua, chairman of China Railway Group Ltd., said in the report.

For the year 2010, Shi believed China's domestic economy will continue to stabilize and further recover with the sustained and proactive fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policy.

Infrastructure construction investment in railway, highway, public works projects and inter-city rail transit will remain relatively high, he said, which will create a "sound external conditions" for business growth this year.

Investors's views of China Railway Group Ltd. diverged in Shanghai and Hong Kong Monday. The company's yuan-denominated A-shares dipped 0.55 percent to 5.38 yuan on the Shanghai Stock Exchange while its Hong Kong dollar-denominated H-shares gained 2.37 percent to 5.62 HK dollars in Hong Kong. (100 HK dollars = 87.942 yuan)