July 11- This year’s Global Fortune 500 list included 35 Chinese firms: 26 from the mainland, three from Hong Kong and six from Taiwan.

It is the best showing of Chinese companies in the list thus far.

The country’s largest refiner Sinopec, led the Chinese group at 16th place, followed by State Grid, ranking at 24th place, China National Petroleum at 25th and Hon Hai Precision Industry at 132nd place and ICBC at 133rd.

The list also included 19 State-owned Chinese companies under the central government that dealt in the energy, financial and telecommunications industries.

China’s top banks were in the list including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China.

The Global Fortune 500 list was topped by U.S. retailer Wal-Mart with sales of US$378.8 billion followed by Exxon Mobil with sales of US$372.8 billion, Royal Dutch Shell with US$355.7 billion, BP with US$291.4 billion and Toyota Motor with US$230.2 billion.

Wal-Mart was the only retailer featured in the top 10.

U.S. companies occupied 153 places among the top 500, nine companies less compared to last year’s 162. The U.S. firms taken off the list were investment firm Bear Stearns, Nike and Gap.

On the other hand, the list featured 64 Japanese firms, 39 French firms, 37 German firms and 34 British firms.

India had seven companies placing in the list led by Indian Oil and Reliance Industries while Russia had five, including its biggest oil company, Gazprom.

Global Fortune 500 companies reported a total revenue of US$23.6 trillion, an increase of 13 percent from a year ago while total profits reached US$1.6 trillion, up 3.9 percent. The  list ranks all companies in the world based on their revenues only.

All data is for the fiscal year ended on or before March 31, 2008. Revenue and profit figures for non-U.S. companies have been converted to U.S. dollars at the average exchange rate during each company’s fiscal year.