Sinopec retains top dog status among Chinese companies

Sinopec Corp (中國石化), Asia's largest oil refiner, remains China's highest-grossing company, according to an annual list of the country's top 500 firms seen yesterday.

Sinopec retained top spot for the third straight year with revenue exceeding 1.06 trillion yuan (US$140.5 billion) last year, the list by the China Enterprise Federation said.

The firm was the only one on the list, now in its sixth year, to exceed 1 trillion yuan in revenue.

All companies in the top 10 are state-owned enterprises, underlining the prevalence of state control over Chinese industry despite liberalization.

They included two oil companies, two electric utilities, three commercial banks, two telecom operators and one insurance company.

Hong Kong-listed Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings Ltd (國美電器控股), China's largest home appliance chain, was the only privately held listed company among the top 50 companies, moving up to No. 37 from No. 53 last year.

Huang Guangyu (黃光裕), the founder of Gome, was named China's richest person last year by Forbes magazine with a net worth of US$2.3 billion.

The China Daily said yesterday that the revenue of firms on the list increased by 23.7 percent from a year earlier, while profits jumped 25.9 percent largely because of continued growth from mergers and acquisitions.

However, the profitability of firms on the China list still lags behind that of the world's top 500 companies compiled annually by Forbes, recording a profit margin of 4.72 percent compared with the global giants' average 7.32 percent, the paper added.