A total of 95 Chinese companies have made it onto the list of Fortune 500 companies compiled by Fortune magazine, with combined gross revenue of $5.2 trillion, or 17 percent of the Fortune 500's total revenue.

The list, ranked by companies' gross revenue, showed that in 2012, China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec Group) had the largest revenue of $428.17 billion among all Chinese companies. China National Petroleum Corp was close behind, with annual revenue of $408.6 billion.

Sinopec Group ranked fourth and China National Petroleum ranked fifth on the global list, each up by one spot from the previous year.

Globally, Royal Dutch Shell Plc is the largest company in terms of annual revenue, with $481.7 billion. Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Exxon Mobil Corp took the second and third spots.

Besides ten Taiwan or Hong Kong-headquartered corporations, there are 85 Chinese mainland-headquartered companies, mostly State-owned Enterprises. Most are concentrated in the energy, resources, banking and telecommunication sectors.

In a note accompanying the list, Fortune's Chinese website pointed out there are both positive and worrying aspects in the Chinese listings.

Besides the dominant share of SOEs and the underdeveloped service sector, the note said profits are unequally distributed among all listed Chinese companies. The nine top commercial banks account for 55.2 percent of all Chinese mainland companies' profits.

The note also said Chinese companies' high-leverage ratios are a source of concern.

In China, non-financial companies' average leverage ratio is 4.42 while that of their counterparts in United States is 2.79.

zhengyangpeng@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 07/09/2013 page14)