By NNN-Bernama,
Dubai : Dinar Standard, a United States-based growth strategy and intelligence service provider, has released its fifth annual DS100 ranking of the top 100 businesses in member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Turkish companies continued to lead the list with 23 enterprises, followed by Malaysia with 14, Saudi Arabia (13), Kuwait (eight) and Indonesia (seven).
Other countries represented were the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Oman, Pakistan, Nigeria, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Bahrain and Algeria.
With US$1.21 trillion in total revenues, the 2008 DS100 list of companies recorded a respectable 12.3 per cent growth in revenue over the previous year, Dinar Standard said in a statement here over the weekend.
It said Saudi Aramco, the world’s top oil producer, continued to lead the DS100 as the largest business enterprise of the Muslim world, and the 21 integrated oil and gas companies on the list continued their dominance, representing 64 per cent of the total DS100 company revenues.
However, the biggest year-on-growth in revenue was recorded by basic material (chemical, iron, copper, others) companies at 34 per cent with Goldas from Turkey rising 72 per cent, followed by SABIC, the Saudi Arabia-based chemical giant, recording an impressive 46 per cent growth.
The agriculture and food sector also grew strongly (20 per cent)) benefiting from increased global food demand, with Malaysian IOI Group (64 per cent growth) leading that sector.
Dinar Standard said the ranking showed a decrease in growth for the construction, energy, and diversified sector companies.
“As the global economic crisis persists, the reserves built by many DS100 companies through strong performance over the last few years should be a promising source of stability for OIC markets,” said Dinar Standard managing director Rafiuddin Shikoh.
“In the past few years we’ve seen many companies on the DS100 list such as SABIC, Zain, and Ulker emerge as global players. The exciting opportunity is to see how other DS100 companies will turn this global downturn as an opportunity to truly break onto the global competitive landscape,” he added.