THE country yesterday published the 2020 list of the top 500 Chinese enterprises, showing improved performances and increased research and development (R&D) spending from the listed companies.

The new list, jointly issued by the China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association for the 19th consecutive year, showed that the firms’ combined net profits have risen 10.2 percent year on year.

Combined revenues of the top 500 firms hit 86.02 trillion yuan (US$12.6 trillion) in 2019, up 8.75 percent year on year.

The China Petrochemical Corp. topped the list, with revenues of 2.81 trillion yuan. It was followed by the State Grid Corp. of China and the China National Petroleum Corp., which raked in revenues of 2.65 trillion yuan and 2.62 trillion yuan, respectively.

Among the 500 firms, 431 reported R&D data. Their combined R&D spending totaled 1.08 trillion yuan, with the ratio of R&D expenditure to operating revenues rising to a historic high of 1.61 percent.

The number of firms with revenues above 100 billion yuan rose to 217, up from 194 last year. When the first list was issued in 2002, only 10 firms reported revenues above 100 billion yuan.

The 500th company on the 2020 list reported revenues of 35.96 billion yuan, an increase of 3.64 billion yuan from last year.

(Xinhua)