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State Monopolies Continue to Dominate China's Top 500
Summary:


September 5, 2012
Translated by Zhang Dian


A new list that ranks China's top 500 companies according to operating revenue put together by the China Enterprise Confederation & China Enterprise Directors Association (CEC/CEDA) reveals that most of China's biggest companies are still owned by the state.

China Petrochemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec, topped the list for the eigth year in a row. Operating revenue at the huge state-owned petroleum company amounted to almost 2.55 trillion yuan in 2011.

Of the 500 companies that made it on to this year's list, 310 are state-owned enterprises with the other 190 privately run companies.

All of the top 30 enterprises on the list are owned by the state.

The combined operating revenue of all 310 SOEs on the list reached 36.8 trillion yuan in 2011, about 4.5 times the size of the combined operating revenue of the 190 private enterprises that made it on to the top 500.

The total assets of all the SOEs on the list came to 116.7 trillion yuan at the end of last year and they made a combined net profit of RMB 2.1 trillion yuan in 2011, almost nine times and seven times the respective figures for the private firms on the list.

Still, more private enterprises are making it onto the list than in the past.

In 2009, less than one fifth of China's top 500 companies were privately-owned and their sales revenues comprised less than 10 percent of the total.

The figures for this year's list show that close to 40 percent of the companies on the list are privately owned and that the operating revenue of these private firms came close to 19 percent of the combined total of all companies on the list.

The combined operating revenue of all the top 500 enterprises reached 44.9 trillion yuan in 2011, 23.6 percent more than the total from last year's list.

The cut-off point for making the list was having an operating revenue of 17.5 billion yuan and over one hundred of the companies on the list had operating revenue of over 100 billion yuan in 2011.

All of the companies in the top ten are state-owned.

1. China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) - 中石化
2. China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) - 中石油
3. State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) - 国家电网公司
4. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC) - 工商银行
5. China Construction Bank (CCB) 建设银行
6. China Mobile - 中国移动
7. Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) - 农业银行
8. Bank of China (BOC) - 中国银行
9. China State Construction (CSC) - 中国建筑
10. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOCC) - 中海油


When comparing this year's rankings to last year, there hasn't been much change at the top of the list, with the top 4 exactly the same as last year.

However, there have been some changes at the lower end of the list with China Railway Group Limited (中国中铁), China Railway Engineering Corporation (中国铁建) and China Life (中国人寿) all dropping out of the top ten and Bank of China, China State Construction and China National Offshore Oil Corporation taking their place.

A large operating revenue however does not necessarily mean large profits. The operating profit ratio of the Top 500 companies decreased to 4.7 percent, down 1.07 percentage points on last year.

Links and Sources
Southern Metropolis Daily: 中国企业500强榜单出炉,国企310家民企190家
Economic Observer Online: State Monopolies Dominate China\'s Top 500
Baidu: 2012中国企业500强榜单 (Full list in Chinese)

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