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Shanghai Electric leads top 100

By Wan Zhihong (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-04-14 06:45

Shanghai Electric Corporation led the list of the country's top 100 machinery firms for the second year with 60.5 billion yuan (US$7.5 billion) in sales revenue last year.

Ranked by 2005 sales revenue, the list of the top 100 companies was released yesterday.

Harbin Power Equipment Corporation came in second with 19.6 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion) and Dongfang Electric Corporation claimed third place with 18.6 billion yuan (US$2.3 billion).

The sales revenue of the 100 companies accounted for more than 20 per cent of the total machinery industry in China.

The 100 companies only accounted for 0.28 per cent of the total machinery companies in China, but in 2004 their sales revenue accounted for 20.25 per cent of the total and their profit accounted for 22.06 per cent of that of the total industry, said Cai Weici, executive vice-president of China Machinery Industry Federation.

Electric appliances manufacturers, office equipment producers, engineering machinery companies and mining machinery companies were the most represented on the list.

Last year the top three firms were Shanghai Electric, Chunlan Corporation and Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Inc.

China Machinery Industry Federation, together with China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and National Bureau of Statistics of China, issued the list.

The list was based on the annual machinery companies' reports and the industry associations' statistics. Companies that made losses in 2005 or did not submit their annual reports were not considered for the list.

"The Chinese machinery industry has seen the fastest growth in the years between 2000 to 2005. The total output value of the industry in 2005 is 2.87 times compared to that of 2000," said Cai.

"And the growth rate is 20.3 per cent year-on-year. In contrast, the growth rate of 2003 and 2004 were 38.9 per cent and 33.52 per cent respectively."

However, the nation's machinery industry reported a lower growth rate in 2005 compared with that in 2003 and 2004 because of industry overcapacity.

The price hike of upstream products and the price drop of machinery products also caused the slowdown. Cai said profits of Chinese machinery companies remained low.

He added that the growth of the machinery industry is expected to increase steadily, predicting the industry will grow by about 15 per cent and profits by 5 to 10 per cent.

(China Daily 04/14/2006 page10)