Chinese investors in India insignificant at home

BEIJING: Chinese companies operating in India do not have much say in the economy of their parent country. This is evident in the extremely low ranking of Chinese players in India in the list of top 500 enterprises issued on Saturday. The top 20 Chinese companies have very little, if any, role to play in India.

The website of the Chinese embassy in New Delhi has listed five main players in the Indian market. None of them figure among the top 30 companies out of the list of 500 leading enterprises issued by two industry associations with the backing of the Chinese government.

They include Huawei Technologies and Sinosteel, which have been ranked 39 and 40. ZTE and Fibrehome Technologies in the embassy list have not made it among the top 100. Chinese investors in India are pigmy sized players in their home market, the listings done by revenue, shows.

India's main imports come in the form of power equipment, who have no investment in the country. The sellers include Dongfeng Motor, which got 13th rank, and Shanghai Electric ranked 81st. Another seller, Harbin Power, did not make it to the top 500 list.

The only exception is the ICBC, which launched banking operations in Mumbai recently. It has taken the fourth rank doing better than last year when it was 5th.

An interesting aspect of the list is that the top 20 companies are largely state-owned enterprises. In fact, private companies have very little role to play in the rankings of the top 100 enterprises in China.

Revenues of top 500 companies rose dramatically by 31.6 per cent on a year-on-year basis in 2010, the China Enterprise Confederation and the China Enterprise Directors Association, said while releasing the rankings by revenues of companies.

Players in the petroleum, construction and financial services dominate the top 10 rankings led by the Sinopec Group, which had revenues worth $308 billion last year. China National Petroleum Corp. and State Grid Corp., have been ranked 3rd and 4th, respectively. The remaining seven in the list are the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Mobile, China Railway Group, China Railway Construction Corp., China Construction Bank, China Life Insurance Co. and Agricultural Bank of China.