TO THE POINT: Chinese officials claimed that the economy wasn't overheating, even though the consumer price index grew over 3 percent during the year. Domestic pork prices continued to fall for the fourth week in a row. And although large-scale pork imports were ruled out by officials, the U.S. food supplier Smithfield Foods Inc. is raring to sell pork to China. Sinopec topped the list of China's top 500 companies and ranked the 17th in the world's top 500. The New York Stock Exchange got the green light from the Chinese Government to open a representative office on the mainland. Home appliance giant Gome owner Huang Guangyu expanded his arena further to the real estate and fashion industries, while a large amount of venture capital is flowing into the Chinese IT industry. By LIU YUNYUN

Top Dog: Sinopec

State-owned China Petrochemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec, was the largest company by revenue on the Chinese mainland, with 1.06 trillion yuan (US$139.5 billion) in 2006. It was the only company to top 1 trillion yuan, according to the latest China Enterprise Confederation (CEC) list of the country's top 500 companies.

Foreign trade dealer Zhucheng Waimao Co. Ltd., based in Shandong Province, ranked 500th and recorded revenues of 7.216 billion yuan.

Numbers of the Week 65 companies From July to September 3, 65 companies succeeded in launching initial public offerings on the Chinese mainland stock market, raising 91.31 billion yuan. 121 million square meters By the end of July, there had been 121 million square meters of vacant space in the nation's commercial residential housing sector, growing 0.5 percent compared to the same period last year.

Companies on the list witnessed a 23.7-percent increase in revenues and a 25.9-percent hike in profits from the previous year, largely because of continued growth from mergers and acquisitions.

However, the profit-making performance of the 500 falls far behind that of the world's top 500 as compiled by Fortune magazine.

China's top companies recorded a modest 4.72 percent in their profit margins, lower than the average 7.32 percent of the world's top 500, the CEC report said. Moreover, the return on equity of China's top 500 was 10.1 percent, much lower than the 16.1 percent of the world's top 500.

"The top 500 China is still mainly ranked by size instead of performance," said Li Wei, Deputy Director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

"That is a huge gap between China and developed countries."

A total of 30 Chinese companies were among the world's top 500 in 2007, and Sinopec, the largest company in China, ranked 17th.

"China's top firms have still focused their business on traditional industries, mainly manufacturing," argued Yang Du, professor at Renmin University of China. Many of the world's top 500 companies belong to the service sector.

As many as 280 companies, accounting for 56 percent of the top 500, are from manufacturing industries, and less than 30 percent are from service-related industries.

Rising Gains

China's electronics and information industry raked in 258.1 billion yuan in the first seven months of this year, up 18.7 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Information Industry.

The sector realized 497.7 billion yuan in value-added output, which is up 18.1 percent, excluding software providers.

Between January and July, the output of servers increased by 91.7 percent, LCD TV sets by 76.4 percent and video recorders by 32.4 percent, becoming the top three electronics and IT products in terms of growth.

Meanwhile, the country produced 71.31 million personal computers in the first seven months, up 31.5 percent, and 668,000 large-scale integrated circuit chips, up 9.2 percent.

Bourse Invasion

The world's largest bourse, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), was approved for establishing a representative office in China.

The approval comes in the wake of the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue held last December, when Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi agreed to allow NYSE Euronext, the operator of NYSE, along with the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., to open offices on the Chinese mainland.

NYSE is the first approved foreign stock exchange applicants.

China has become a major source for initial public offerings (IPOs) globally as an increasing number of its largest companies seek listings on the mainland.

Chinese issuers have raised $25.1 billion in 2007 through IPOs, accounting for 14 percent of the global IPO proceeds, second only to the U.S.'s $29.6 billion and 16.1 percent market share, according to Thomson Financial, a financial data provider.

Insiders said the NYSE plans to promote a dual listing of companies both on the Chinese mainland and on the U.S. Big Board.

Chinese issuers have raised huge sums this year, and are increasingly looking to the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges to raise money because of higher valuations at home and encouragement from regulators to support the domestic market. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has soared 99 percent so far this year.

Venturing Into China

China's venture capital market reached historic highs in both fundraising and investment in the second quarter of 2007, according to Zero2IPO Research Center, a Beijing company that follows venture capital and private equity.

A total of 121 companies acquired about $694 million in venture capital in the second quarter, compared with 67 companies that received almost $419 million in the first quarter.