The 2023 Top 500 Chinese Enterprises List is Released - Large Companies Take Their Scale and Strength to the Next Level (with the Top 500 List attached) _ Economic News _ News Center

On September 20th, at the 2023 China Top 500 Enterprises Summit Forum, the China Enterprise Confederation and the China Entrepreneur Association released the list of China's Top 500 Enterprises for the 22nd consecutive year, with the previous year's operating income as the entry criterion. At the same time, for the 19th consecutive year, the list of China's Top 500 Manufacturing Enterprises and China's Top 500 Service Enterprises was released. According to the list, the overall revenue of China's top 500 enterprises in 2023 has maintained a steady growth trend, and the high-quality development of large enterprises has reached a new level.

The threshold for admission is steadily increasing

The total operating revenue of the top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2023 was 108.36 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.74% over the previous year; The total assets amounted to 399.77 trillion yuan, an increase of 27.24 trillion yuan or 7.31% compared to the previous year; The threshold for entry has been raised for 21 consecutive years, with a total of 46.998 billion yuan for the 2023 Top 500 Chinese Enterprises, an increase of 2.373 billion yuan from the previous year.

Wang Zhongyu, President of the China Enterprise Confederation and the China Entrepreneurs Association, stated that despite facing a complex and severe international environment and experiencing unexpected impacts from the pandemic, China's large enterprises have persisted in seeking progress while maintaining stability, actively practicing the new development concept, and entering a stage of placing greater emphasis on development quality while achieving steady growth, demonstrating strong development resilience.

Among the large enterprises on the list, the number of enterprises with a revenue of over 100 billion yuan has exceeded 50% for the first time. The number of enterprises with a revenue of over 100 billion yuan among the top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2023 has increased to 254, a net increase of 10. Among them, 16 enterprises have operating revenues exceeding 1 trillion yuan, State Grid, PetroChina, and Sinopec have operating revenues exceeding 3 trillion yuan, and China Construction has operating revenues exceeding 2 trillion yuan.

It is worth mentioning that while large enterprises are experiencing rapid growth in total assets, they also make outstanding social contributions in areas such as taxation and employment. The top 500 companies in China and the manufacturing industry have achieved dual growth in taxation and employment. Among them, the total tax payment of the top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2023 was 47446.64 billion yuan, an increase of 9.57% over the previous year, and the total number of employees was 32.8153 million, an increase of 1.18% over the previous year; The total tax payment of the top 500 manufacturing enterprises in China in 2023 was 2235.953 billion yuan, an increase of 18.87% over the previous year, and the total number of employees was 14.8356 million, an increase of 5.97% over the previous year.

Continuous improvement of innovation capability

From the data of technology investment and R&D of the listed enterprises, it can be seen that the innovation driving role of large enterprises has been enhanced, the technology support role has been further improved, and the R&D investment and intensity have continued to increase. The top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2023 have invested a total of 1.578688 trillion yuan in research and development, an increase of 131.221 billion yuan or 9.07% compared to the previous year. The average R&D intensity has shown a continuous upward trend, reaching a new high of 1.85%, an increase of 0.04 percentage points compared to the previous year.

Wang Zhongyu stated that China's large enterprises should effectively play a leading role, continuously strengthen research and development investment, make great efforts in core technologies, strive for major breakthroughs, and accelerate the realization of high-level technological self-reliance and self-improvement. We should promote the synergy and integration of the industrial chain and innovation chain with a systematic approach, focus on the weaknesses of the industrial chain and the pain points of the innovation chain, fully leverage the supporting role of technological innovation, and enhance the endogenous driving force of industrial development.

The data shows that the total number of patent applications filed by the top 500 Chinese enterprises in 2023 is 1.8853 million; The number of patent applications increased by 217300 compared to the previous year's Top 500 Enterprises, representing a growth of 13.03%. Among them, 743400 invention patents were applied for, an increase of 10.48% compared to the previous year's Top 500 Enterprises. The number of invention patents has continued to grow for five consecutive years, accounting for 39.43% of the total number of patents. In 2023, a total of 75110 Chinese Fortune 500 companies applied to participate in the formulation of standards, an increase of 171 compared to the previous year. The number of companies applying to participate in the formulation of standards has achieved four consecutive increases. The enterprise actively participates in the development of international standards and has applied to participate in 4992 international standard developments.

According to Gao Rui, deputy researcher of the China Enterprise Confederation, innovation is not only the key to enhancing competitive advantage, promoting the improvement of core competitiveness and enhancing core functions, but also an important source of increasing innovation value. The stronger the innovation capability of a company, the more prominent its product competitive advantage will be, and correspondingly, it will be able to obtain more excess profits to improve its profitability.

The development of manufacturing industry is accelerating again

From the distribution of industries among the listed companies, the development of the manufacturing industry has significantly accelerated, becoming a key force in stabilizing the overall economy. In the 2023 Top 500 Chinese Enterprises, there are 264 manufacturing enterprises, an increase of 8 from the previous year's Top 500 Enterprises, maintaining an increase for the third consecutive year. The revenue growth of manufacturing enterprises is significantly faster than that of service industry enterprises. From the comparison between the top 500 manufacturing enterprises and the top 500 service enterprises, it can be seen that the operating income of the top 500 Chinese manufacturing enterprises in 2023 increased by 8.38% compared to the previous year, significantly higher than the 0.33% of the top 500 Chinese service enterprises in 2023.

The research group of the China Enterprise Confederation proposed in "Trends, Problems and Suggestions for the Development of Chinese Large Enterprises in 2023" that the problems of "large but not strong" and "comprehensive but not excellent" industries in China still exist, and there are still many bottlenecks and shortcomings in key areas and key links. The problem of unbalanced and insufficient industrial development has not been comprehensively solved.

The solution to the problem requires both government guidance and support, as well as the efforts of numerous enterprises. Several industry insiders stated at the summit forum that large enterprises are focusing on developing the real economy and accelerating breakthroughs in the bottleneck links. Enterprises in the real economy sector should focus on optimizing and strengthening their main business, comprehensively sorting out the technological pain points and bottlenecks faced by enterprises, increasing R&D investment around the "bottleneck" links, carrying out R&D cooperation, introducing high-end innovative talents, optimizing innovation mechanisms, and achieving a number of major innovative results as soon as possible to consolidate the technological foundation of modern industrial system construction.

In the 2023 Fortune Global 500, there are 133 companies from mainland China that have been shortlisted, which is the same as the previous year and ranks second in the number of shortlisted companies; Including Hong Kong and Taiwan companies, the number of Chinese companies shortlisted was 142, a decrease of 3 from the previous year; 136 American companies have been shortlisted, while Chinese companies have ranked first on the Fortune Global 500 list for five consecutive years. There are a total of 39 new and re listed companies in the 2023 Fortune Global 500, including 7 companies from China, namely CATL New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Industrial Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., Guangdong Guangxin Holding Group Co., Ltd., Shaanxi Construction Engineering Holding Group Co., Ltd., Meituan, Tongwei Group Co., Ltd., and Lixun Precision Industry Co., Ltd.

Attachment:List of China's Top 500 Enterprises in 2023