Sitécon, Comparaison des valeurs ajoutées des pays et des entreprises mondiales

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World Investment Report 2002: Transnational Corporations and Export Competitiveness Box IV.1. Are some TNCs bigger than countries ?

There is no doubt that TNCs have been growing in size at rates exceeding those of many economies. The sales of the 500 largest firms in the world nearly tripled between 1990 and 2001, a while world GDP in current prices increased 1.5 times between these two years. UNCTAD’s 100 TNCs also increased their total sales, from $3.2 trillion to almost $4.8 trillion between 1990 and 2000.

The size of large TNCs is sometimes compared to that of countries’ economies, as an indicator of the influence that the former have in the wor ld economy. According to one comparison of the sales volume of firms with the GDP of countries, the sales of the top 200 firms accounted for 27.5 per cent of world GDP in 1999 (Anderson and Cavanagh, 2000). Of the 50 largest “economies”, 14 were TNCs and 36 were countries.

However, a comparison of the sales of firms with the GDP of countries is conceptually flawed, as GDP is a value-added measure and sales are not. A comparable yardstick requires that sales be recalculated as value added. For firms, value added can be estimated as the sum of salaries and benefits, depreciation and amortization, and pre-tax income (De Grauwe and Camerman, 2002).

Based on this measure, the world’s largest TNC was ExxonMobil, with an estimated $63 billion in value added in 2000; i t ranked 45th in a combined l ist of count r ies and non- f inancial companies (box table IV.1.1). The size of this company equals the size of the economies of Chile or Pakistan in terms of value added. In the top 100 of a combined country-company list for 2000, there were 29 TNCs; half of the largest valueadded entities ranked between 51 and 100 were individual firms (box table IV.1.1).

Box table IV.1.1. How large are the top TNCs vis-à-vis economies in 2000 ?

(Billions of dollars)

Rank Name of TNC/economy value added	Rank Name of TNC/economy value added	Rank Name of TNC/economy value added
1 United States 9 810 2 Japan 4 765 3 Germany 1 866 4 United Kingdom 1 427 5 France 1 294 6 China 1 080 7 Italy 1 074 8 Canada 701 9 Brazil 595 10 Mexico 575 11 Spain 561 12 Korea, Republic of 457 13 India 457 14 Austral ia 388 15 Netherlands 370 16 Taiwan Province of China 309 17 Argentina 285 18 Russian Federation 251 19 Swi tzerland 239 20 Sweden 229 21 Belgium 229 22 Turkey 200 23 Austria 189 24 Saudi Arabia 173 25 Denmark 163 26 Hong Kong, China 163 27 Norway 162 28 Poland 158 29 Indonesia 153 30 South Africa 126 31 Thai land 122 32 Finland 121 33 Venezuela 120	34 Greece 113 35 Israel 110 36 Por tugal 106 37 Iran, Islamic Republic of 105 38 Egypt 99 39 Ireland 95 40 Singapore 92 41 Malaysia 90 42 Colombia 81 43 Phi l ippines 75 44 Chi le 71 45 ExxonMobi l 63b 46 Pakistan 62 47 General Motors 56b 48 Peru 53 49 Algeria 53 50 New Zealand 51 51 Czech Republic 51 52 United Arab Emirates 48 53 Bangladesh 47 54 Hungary 46 55 Ford Motor 44 56 DaimlerChrysler 42 57 Nigeria 41 58 General Electric 39b 59 Toyota Motor 38b 60 Kuwait 38 61 Romania 37 62 Royal Dutch/Shell 36 63 Morocco 33 64 Ukraine 32 65 Siemens 32 66 Viet Nam 31	67 Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 31 68 B P 30 69 Wal-Mart Stores 30c 70 IBM 27b 71 Volkswagen 24 72 Cuba 24 73 Hitachi 24b 74 TotalFinaElf 23 75 Verizon Communications 23d 76 Matsushita Electric Industrial 22b 77 Mitsui & Company 20c 78 E.On 20 79 Oman 20 80 Sony 20b 81 Mi t subi shi 20c 82 Uruguay 20 83 Dominican Republic 20 84 Tuni s ia 19 85 Philip Morris 19b 86 Slovakia 19 87 Croatia 19 88 Guatemala 19 89 Luxembourg 19 90 SBC Communications 19d 91 Itochu 18c 92 Kazakhstan 18 93 Slovenia 18 94 Honda Motor 18b 95 Eni 18 96 Nissan Motor 18b 97 Toshiba 17b 98 Syrian Arab Republic 17 99 GlaxoSmi thKl ine 17 100 B T 17

Source: UNCTAD. http://www.unctad.org/templates/WebFlyer.asp?intItemID=2477&lang=2

a GDP for countries and value added for TNCs. Value added is defined as the sum of salaries, pre-tax profits and depreciat ion and amort isat ion.

b Value added is estimated by applying the 30 per-cent share of value added in the total sales, 2000, of 66 manufacturers for which the data were avai lable.

c Value added is estimated by applying the 16 per-cent share of value added in the total sales, 2000, of 7 trading companies for which the data on value added were avai lable.

d Value added is estimated by applying the 37 per-cent share of value added in the total sales, 2000, of 22 other tert iary companies for which the data on value added were avai lable.