MUSLIM WORLD’S TOP 100 BUSINESSES

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 the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Turkish companies continued to lead the list with 23 enterprises, followed by 14 from Malaysia, 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 companies recorded a respectable 12.3 per cent growth in revenue over the previous year, Dinar Standard said in a statement. 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 over year growth in revenue was logged 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.