The combined business revenue of China's top 500 companies accounted for 83.5 percent of the gross domestic product in 2006, almost six percentage points higher than the previous year.

The China Top 500 Enterprises 2007 List released on Saturday said that the top 500 gained 17.49 trillion yuan (US$2.3 trillion) of business revenue last year, up 23.7 percent over 2005.

Sinopec maintained its No.1 position with business revenue of 1.06 trillion yuan, up 29 percent year-on-year, according to the report issued by the China Enterprise Confederation (CEC) and China Enterprise Directors Association (CEDA) on Saturday.

Second to fifth rankings went respectively to China National Petroleum Corporation, State Grid, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Mobile.

A total of 349 enterprises, or nearly 70 percent of the total in the list, were state-owned or state-controlled. Their combined assets reached 14.9 trillion yuan at the end of 2006, accounting for 85 percent of the total.

The number of private-owned enterprises in the list rose to 89, with 1.4 trillion yuan of business revenue.

The CEC said the list included 22 enterprises in 11 different industries which made their way into the World Top 500 while there were 11 in 2002.

(Xinhua News Agency September 1, 2007)