Power firm secures powerful position
By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-06 11:01

The State Grid Corporation of China secured the No 1 position on the annually updated list of the country's top 500 businesses this year, thanks to an operating income of about 413 billion yuan (US$50 billion).

The updated list of China's top 500 enterprises was announced yesterday in Chongqing in Southwest China.

Last year's top firm - China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) - moved down a notch to second place, while oil company Sinopec retained the third position.

The top-500 list was included in the Report on the Development of Chinese Enterprises published at the weekend by the China Enterprise Confederation (CEC).

The voluminous annual document analyzes a wide range of topics, such as foreign companies in China, reform efforts of State-owned enterprises, company management priorities and profiles of China's entrepreneurs.

The report said private enterprises have emerged in China's economy with 14.8 per cent of the top 500 enterprises now owned by private investors. And the rate is up from 3.8 per cent in 2002, when the CEC began publishing the annual list.

Chen Zhong, CEC deputy general director, said China had only three enterprises on the global-500 list in 1995; but the number has increased to 18.

Chen added that firms have made rapid progress in sharpening their competitiveness.

But China's enterprises are still small in scale compared to international giants, according to the confederation's report.

To grow, Chen suggested Chinese enterprises should stress core competitiveness, efficient management of human resources and brand strategies.

But evaluation systems have been criticized by researchers, who insist that greater effort should be put into strengthening social responsibility of enterprises.

Jin Zhouying, a leading researcher on enterprise innovation with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, challenged the popular enterprise-ranking systems, such as the Fortune Global 500 and China top 500, complaining that evaluating organizations only concern economic performance.

"They don't give much consideration to a company's social responsibility," said Jin.

She has been crying out for change.

"It's high time for us to have second thoughts about what makes a good employer," said Jin, who is trying to introduce a new system to assess enterprises in China.

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