China top 500 companies

The China Enterprise Confederation (CEC) has released its latest list of the country's top 500 companies. State-owned China Petrochemical Corporation, also called Sinopec, was the largest company by revenue, with 1.06 trillion yuan in 2006. It was the only company to top 1 trillion yuan. Foreign trade dealer Zhucheng Waimao Co Ltd ranked 500. The Shandong province-based company recorded 7.216 billion yuan. A total of 349 enterprises, or nearly 70 percent of the total in the list, were state-owned or state-controlled. Their combined assets reached 14.9 trillion yuan at the end of 2006, accounting for 85 percent of the total. Companies in the list witnessed a 23.7 percent increase in revenue and 25.9 percent hike in profits from the previous year. However, the money-earning performance of the 500 still falls far behind that of the world's top 500 as compiled by Forbes. China's top performers recorded a modest 4.72 percent on profit margin, lower than the average 7.32 percent of the world's top 500, the CEC report said. The return on equity of the top 500 was 10.1 percent, much lower than the 16.1 percent of the world's top 500. "The top 500 China is still mainly ranked in size instead of performance," Li Wei, deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council said. "That is a gap between China and developed countries." A total of 22 Chinese companies were among the world's top 500 in 2007. Sinopec, the largest company in China, ranked 17th. "China's top firms have still focused their business on traditional industries, mainly manufacturing," Yang Du, professor at Renmin University of China, said. As many as 280 companies, accounting for 56 percent of the top 500 are from manufacturing industries, and less than 30 percent are from service-related industries. China's top 500 have been continually expanding, with 131 of them, merging and acquiring some 408 other businesses last year. "But these merger and acquisition (M&A) activities are mainly limited within the same industries and few of the M&A deals are cross-industries," Yang said. The number of private-owned enterprises in the list rose to 89, with 1.4 trillion yuan of business revenue.

中国企业联合会近日发布了“中国企业500强”最新榜单。 国有企业中国石油化工集团公司（简称“中石化”，Sinopec）以去年1.06万亿元的营业收入名列榜首，同时，它也是中国唯一一个收入超过万亿的企业。 山东诸城外贸有限责任公司以72.16亿元的营业收入位居第500位。 近70%、共349个上榜企业是国有企业或国有控股企业。截至去年年底，这些企业的资产总额达1.49万亿元，占榜上所有企业资产总额的85%。 与上一年度相比，中国500强企业的营业收入总额和利润额分别增长了23.7%和25.9%。 然而，中国500强企业的盈利能力仍远不及《福布斯》的世界500强企业。 报告指出，中国500强企业的利润率仅为4.72%，低于世界500强的平均水平7.32%。 中国500强企业的资产收益率为10.1%，远低于世界500强的16.1%。 国务院国有资产监督管理委员会副主任李伟说：“中国500强企业的排名主要还是依照企业规模而非盈利水平。” “这是中国与发达国家之间的差距。” 2007年，中国共有22家企业跻身世界500强，我国最大的“中石化”集团名列第17位。 中国人民大学的杨杜教授指出：“中国500强企业的经营范围仍集中在传统行业，主要是制造业上。” 在500强企业中，制造业企业占56%，达到280家，而服务业企业的比例还不到30%。 中国500强企业规模不断扩大，其中131个企业去年共兼并了408家经营单位。 杨教授说：“但这些兼并主要局限于同一行业内部，很少有跨行业兼并。” 今年，上榜的私营企业数量增至89个，营业收入总额达到1.4万亿元。