20 Indian companies figure in Forbes list

Twenty Indian companies, including State Bank, Reliance Industries, Indian Oil and Oil and Natural Gas, make to the Forbes list of top 2000 companies worldwide for 2003.

In the ranking based on sales, profits, assets and market value, State Bank of India tops among the Indian companies with an impressive ranking of 268 among the 2000 followed by Reliance, which is placed 306 in the overall list.

Indian Oil at 325 and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation at 351 are third and fourth among the Indian companies.

Interestingly, Indian Oil Corporation was named as the only Indian firm in a Fortune 500 list of global companies. The complete list appears in the July 21 issue of Fortune, available on newsstands on July 14, the magazine said in a statement.

Other Indian companies (with overall ranking in brackets) which make to the list include ICICI (907), Bharat Petroleum (956), Hindustan Lever (1019), Hindustan Petroleum (1091), Bank of India (1313), Bank of Baroda (1344), ITC (1352) and Canara Bank (1365).

Gail India (1370), software giant Infosys Technologies (1397), Industrial Development Bank of India (1403), Wipro (1430), Punjab National Bank (1431), Housing Development Finance (1550), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (1680) and Ranbaxy Laboratories (1800) were also in the coveted list.

Seven hundred and seventy six companies on the list are based in the United States followed by 331 Japanese firms and 132 British companies.

The aggregate revenue of the 2000 companies is $18 trillion and they employ 63 million people.

Among the top ten are six US based companies, two British firms and one each based in Netherlands and Japan.

Citigroup occupies the top position followed by General Electric, American International group, Exxonmobil, Bank of America (all US based), Royal Duch/Shell group (Netherlands), BP (UK), Fannie Mae (USA), HSBC group (UK) and Toyota Motors (Japan).

 Ranks of the Indian companies: