Petrovietnam Insurance says 9-mth net up 40 pct

HANOI, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Petrovietnam Insurance Corp PVI.HN, Vietnam's third-largest insurer, said on Monday its net profit in the first nine months of the year jumped 40 percent thanks to investments and an expanding business.

Hanoi-based PVI's net profit rose to 209 billion dong ($12.7 million) as the firm expanded beyond its traditional business of insuring companies in the oil and gas industry, Deputy General Director Bui Ngoc Thang said.

Shares in PVI gained 6.58 percent to close at 24,300 dong on Monday as the Hanoi Securities Trading Center .HASTCI lost 1.74 percent to close at 112.88 points.

PVI owns a majority of shares in its subsidiaries, PVI Invest and PVI Finance, and also plans to buy a large volume of shares in Petrovietnam Securities, he said without elaboration. None of the companies are listed.

"We have taken full advantage of our financial strength to earn profits by diversifying our financial investments," Thanh said.

"We have targeted not only boosting insurance sales in the oil and gas industry, but also expanding to other sectors," he said.

PVI has projected revenue this year to rise nearly 38 percent to 2.4 trillion dong, of which more than 1 trillion dong would come from insurance premiums in sectors outside the energy industry, Thang said.

It was not clear how much of the firm's revenues came from premiums outside the energy sector in 2007.

An insurance arm of state oil and gas group Petrovietnam PVI, is Vietnam's second-largest non-life insurance firm after Bao Viet and had a 97.5 percent share of the energy sector insurance market last year. ($1=16,510 dong) (Reporting by Bui Thanh Huong; Editing by Ho Binh Minh and Erica Billingham)