Twenty Three (Or Fewer?) China Companies Make Fortune Global 500

The Shanghai Daily just ran a story on how "China has 23 firms in this year's top 500 companies on the latest Fortune magazine's Global 500, an annual ranking list of companies worldwide according to their revenue from the year before."  China had six new companies in the Global 500 this year, more than any other country.

According to the Shanghai Daily, most of the Chinese companies in the Global 500 are "big state-owned enterprises from petroleum, electrical power, banking, IT, trading, insurance, metallurgy, automobile, and construction industries."  Energy and chemical conglomerate, Sinopec, was first among Chinese companies, with $99 billion in revenue, which was an eight position rise for it and put it into 23rd place overall.  The article also noted that "among the six new companies, four are from China's mainland, namely, China Railway Engineering, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, China Railway Construction (HK), and China State Construction.  Two are from Taiwan - Quanta Computer and Cathay Financial Holdings." 

Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn) came in at number 206 on the list, "an astonishing jump of 165 positions compared with last year."  Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa, climbed from No. 347 last year to this year's No. 259.  Haier, the world's 4th-largest white goods manufacturer, and Lenovo, which acquired IBM's Personal Computing Division last year, were not on the list.

Exxon Mobil took first place, with Wal-Mart at second.  Royal Dutch Shell, BP, General Motors, Chevron, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota Motor, Ford Motor and ConocoPhillips rounded out the top ten.

In its story, China Daily states that twenty Chinese firms made the list, leading me to believe that it did not count the Taiwan companies in its China list, unlike the Shanghai Daily.  It is also not clear how many of the twenty are based in Hong Kong.   

China Daily noted that China's three largest state-owned construction firms made the list for the first time, with China Railway Engineering debuting at 441, China Railway Construction at 485, and China State Construction at 486.  Shanghai Automotive also debuted at 475, while China First Automotive kept its place in the pantheon, but fell from 448 last year to 470.  State Grid (electric utility), up from 40 to 32, and China National Petroleum, up from 46 to 39, retain second and third Chinese placings respectively.  China's four state-owned commercial banks all moved up substantially on the list, with The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China going from 299 to 199, the Bank of China moving from 399 to 255, China Construction Bank jumping from 315 to 277, and the Agricultural Bank of China going from 397 to 377.

The full list will appear in Fortune's July 24 issue.