The biggest company in the world hails from China

PetroChina, the Shanghai-listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and mainland China’s biggest producer of oil, recently became the largest company in the world.

Following a stock-price rise of 3%, taking its total market value to some $336 billion, PetroChina is now the most valuable company in the world.  It is worth approximately $100 million more than fellow Oil & Gas giant, United States-based Exxon Mobil.  Industrial Bank of China (Banking), China Mobile (Telecommunications) and China Petroleum (Oil & Gas) are three further Chinese companies which rank among the biggest in the world.

China’s overall economy became the third largest in the world earlier this year, now resting behind just the U.S. and Japan.  Many economists expect China to overtake Japan within the next few years to gain second spot.