Seven companies from the Chinese mainland including China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and China Mobile have been named by Forbes Asia in its list of "Fabulous 50".

This is the third annual list of "Fabulous 50", the best of Asia-Pacific's publicly traded companies, with sales incomes or market capitalization exceeding US$5 billion.

Other mainland companies are China Minsheng Banking, China Shenhua Energy, Lenovo Group, Minmetals Development and Wuhan Iron & Steel. 

The mainland ranked third with seven companies representing it, two more than the previous year.

India tops the list represented by 12 enterprises, and in second place is China's Taiwan Province with 10 enterprises, including Acer, which entered an agreement to acquire Gateway last month.

Japan and Australia both have five companies listed, followed by Hong Kong with four and South Korea with three.

The "Fabulous 50" list will appear in the September 17 issue of Forbes Asia, which is to be put on sale on September 10.

(Chinadaily.com.cn September 7, 2007)