HEFEI -- China unveiled its list of the top 500 Chinese enterprises for 2023 on Wednesday, with 264 companies from the manufacturing sector on the list, an increase of eight over the previous year, maintaining growth for the third consecutive year.

The list was published by the China Enterprise Confederation and the China Enterprise Directors Association during a forum held in the city of Hefei, East China's Anhui province.

The entry threshold in terms of revenue for the top 500 enterprises in China stood at 46.998 billion yuan ($6.55 billion), registering an increase of 2.37 billion yuan compared to the previous year.

According to the list, State Grid Corporation of China, China National Petroleum Corporation, and China Petrochemical Corporation occupy the top three spots, respectively.

The number of companies whose revenues exceeded 100 billion yuan rose to 254, with 16 of them reporting revenues of over 1 trillion yuan.

The top 500 companies saw stable growth in revenue in 2022. They generated combined revenues of 108.36 trillion yuan, a rise of 5.74 percent compared to that generated by the companies on the 2022 list.

Net profits of these companies totaled 4.29 trillion yuan last year, down 3.8 percent from the previous year, the data showed.

Research and development (R&D) has been high on the agenda of these enterprises. Their R&D input amounted to 1.58 trillion yuan, up 9.07 percent, while the R&D intensity ratio reached 1.85 percent, up 0.04 percentage points from a year earlier.