(Yicai) Sept. 12 -- JD.Com and Alibaba Group Holding, two of China’s e-commerce giants, and oil refiner Hengli Group are the country’s highest grossing private businesses, according to a new ranking.

JD.Com was number one for the second year running with revenue of CNY1 trillion (USD143.6 billion) last year, according to a list of the top 500 Chinese private enterprises compiled by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and released today.

The threshold for making the list, now in its 25th year, rose by CNY1.2 billion (USD164.5 million) to CNY27.6 billion (USD3.8 billion) this year. The federation surveyed 8,961 private firms.

Alibaba came in second with annual revenue of CNY864.5 billion (USD118.5 billion). It was followed by Hengli, which also makes advanced polyester materials, with CNY611.8 billion (USD83.9 billion) and high-tech industrial firm Amer International Group with CNY608.8 billion. Eight businesses raked in more than CNY500 billion each.

The top 500 still need to pay attention to issues such as rising costs and sluggish demand, said Zhao Dejiang, the federation’s secretary-general. The performance indicators of some have fluctuated, and the firms have tended to become more cautious about mergers and acquisitions as well as restructuring, he added.

Eighteen Shanghai-based firms made this year’s list, the same number as last year, with the top three being agriculture-to-real estate conglomerate East Hope Group, health-to-smart manufacturing group Fosun International and steel trading platform Zhaogang.

Shanghai ranked seventh among provincial-level regions, up one slot from last year, and sixth for corporate assets owned by the 18 inductees at about CNY2.1 trillion (USD288 billion), making up 4.6 percent of the total. Those 18 had combined revenue of CNY1.4 trillion (USD192 billion), accounting for 3.5 percent of the top 500 firms.

The value-added of Shanghai’s private economy was CNY1.2 trillion (USD165.9 billion) last year, contributing 27 percent of the city’s gross domestic product. Its private businesses paid CNY466.6 billion (USD64 billion) in taxes, or 33 percent of the city’s total tax haul.

Editor: Kim Taylor