MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

China’s top 500 corporations outperformed the US top 500, says Beijing

However leaders admit Chinese corporations are still lacking

Profits of the top 500 Chinese corporations in 2008 exceeded that of their United States counterparts. Gains for the full year in 2008 totalled 1.21 trillion Yuan (177.17 billion US dollars), much more than the 98.9 billion USD from the top 500 US firms in the same period.

According to a Chinese business ranking report revealed over the weekend the figure was down 12.4% from a year ago, but this was dwarfed by the massive 84.67% drop for US companies in 2008.

The report, released by the China Enterprises Confederation and the China Enterprise Directors' Association, made the rankings according to companies' revenue in 2008.

Sinopec, PetroChina and State Grid Corp of China were the top three, in that order, on the list. Sinopec was also in first place in 2007.

Revenue of Sinopec reached 1.46 trillion Yuan, compared with the 44.3 billion by Exxon Mobil, the biggest company on the top 500 list compiled by Fortune in 2008.

The top 500 companies recorded total revenue of 26 trillion Yuan, up 19.7% from a year ago. The threshold of this year's top 500 was raised to 10.5 billion Yuan, compared with last year's 9.31 billion Yuan.

Baogang Iron & Steel Co was in 11th position with a profit of 246.8 billion Yuan, the highest spot for Shanghai-based companies.

“The better performance of the top 500 companies showed China's overall power has strengthened,” Li Rongrong, director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, told a conference in Hangzhou where the figures were released.

Wang Jiming, vice president of CEC, said although the data showed that Chinese companies were less vulnerable to the global financial crisis than their US counterparts, it did not mean they had made substantial improvements in comprehensive competitive power.

He said Chinese enterprises enjoy relatively better policies and domestic market environment. Chinese companies still lacked behind world's leading enterprises in resource allocation, innovation, international presence, business model and corporate culture.