South Korea's state-run National Pension Service’s total asset reached $429.8 billion last year, ranking third among state pension operators in the world, a report showed Thursday.

Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund topped the list with $1.14 trillion in assets, followed by Norway's Government Pension Fund with $884 billion, according to the report by the Nation Pension Research Institute, which cited a survey on top 300 pension funds conducted by Towers Watson, a global marketing service firm, and U.S. newspaper Pensions & Investments.

The aggregated assets of the 300 funds reached $15.4 trillion as of end-2014, up 3.4 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 43 percent of the world's total pension funds.

The top 20 firms have invested 42.2 percent of their money in stocks, 39.5 percent in bonds and the remaining 18.3 percent in other assets, according to the report.

It said those government funds in the Asia-Pacific region, including the NPS, have an investment portfolio that focuses on bonds, but now they are moving to include more stocks in their basket amid a low rate trend. (Yonhap)