A 2016 list of top 500 Chinese enterprises has been released by the China Association of Enterprises.
State Grid, China's dominant electrical utility service provider, tops the list for the first time, replacing Sinopec, which has held that position for the last ten years.
Total revenue of the service industry takes up 40.2 percent of the whole economy, exceeding the 39.3-percent of the manufacturing industry for the first time.
Vice president of the China Association of Enterprises, Li Jianming, explains the reasons, "One of the reasons for these new features and trends in Chinese economy, is that the government has made efforts to improve policies on promoting large enterprises and bring the relevant institutions and mechanisms to further perfection. The other reasons is that Chinese large enterprises are vigorously facing up to challenges, strengthening innovation-driven measures, deepening structural readjustment, improving efficiency upgrading, making full use of both overseas and domestic markets and their resources in an effort to thoroughly integrate with the global value chain."
The top 500 enterprises own some 50,000 subsidiaries and 12,600 branch companies in total, with their operations closely related to the everyday lives of almost all Chinese citizens.
