China's presence on Fortune's Global 500 list grows, despite economic crisis

Another example of China’s respectable growth, despite the global economic crisis, is apparent in this month’s Fortune magazine, with its Global 500 list of the world’s largest companies. The 37 Chinese firms that made the list is all the more impressive when you consider just six companies made the list in 1998, as Worldfocus pointed out on its blog and on its television program.

In the following video clip, Fortune global editor Brian Dumaine says the increasing number of Chinese Fortune 500 companies is all about the country’s economic growth. “It’s a growth story,” he says, “and if you look at where most growth is going on, it’s not in the developed world, it’s in the developing world.”

Despite the successes of a number of Chinese companies, other developing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region are all but completely absent from the Fortune’s list. Of developing countries, only Thailand is listed with its state-owned oil and gas company, PTT Public Company Limited, which has been on the list for at least the past several years.