The list of China's top 500 private companies was revealed yesterday, with Jiangsu Shagang Group at the top for the second straight year, China Business News reported.

Suning Appliance was second and Legend Holdings Ltd. came in third. The standard to be included in China's top 500 private companies increased to 3.66 billion yuan from 2.97 billion yuan in 2008. Compared with central state-owned enterprises such as China Mobile and PetroChina, private enterprises are still small. Statistics showed that net profits of China Mobile and PetroChina together in 2009 were more than that of the top 500 companies combined.