East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) said Tuesday its group net profit in fiscal 1999 leaped threefold from the previous year, following two consecutive years of setbacks.

The company said its net profits for the year that ended March 31 came to 66.96 billion yen.

Its consolidated pretax profit increased 5.5 percent to 131.7 billion yen on sales of 2.5 trillion yen, up 0.8 percent from a year earlier. The operating profits were 342 billion yen, up 2.2 percent.