KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Khazanah Nasional, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, said on Thursday that its portfolio value in 2017 rose 13.2 percent year-on-year to 115.6 billion ringgit (29.23 billion U.S. dollars).

The fund said in a statement that its unaudited profit before tax also surged 84.7 percent year-on-year to 2.89 billion ringgit. It declared dividends of 1 billion ringgit for 2017.

The state investor holds stakes in companies across various sectors including CIMB Group, Malaysia's second-largest banking group, power utility firm Tenaga Nasional and tech giant Alibaba.

"There were ongoing transformation and value creation effects in our core companies, and catalytic development domestically, while international investments continue to gather pace, especially in the technology sector and in China," it said.

In 2017, the group made a total of 14 discrete new investments totaling 6.3 billion ringgit and 12 divestments, providing proceeds amounting to 6.4 billion ringgit, with gains on divestments totaling 2.5 billion ringgit.

Khazanah said the group continued to make new investments in growth companies especially in the innovation and technology sector, while at the same time harvesting value through strategic divestments.

New investments included Edotco Group, Sigfox, and Koubei, an Alibaba affiliate company; while divestments included VeloCloud, Networks Inc., Tech Mahindra and China Huarong Asset Management Co., Ltd.