The world's five largest companies as defined by 1999 sales are General Motors, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor and Daimler/Chrysler. As economic entities, they rate, 23, 25, 26, 27 and 28, respectively, behind the GDPs of the major Western industrialised powers, plus China, Brazil, Mexico, India, South Korea, Russia and Argentina.

* Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations and 49 are countries.

* The world's top 200 corporations account for over a quarter of economic activity on the globe while employing less than 1 percent of its workforce.

* The world's 200 largest corporations have combined sales greater than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 10.

* The top 200's combined sales are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the roughly 25 percent of the world's population living on less than one dollar per day.

* Between 1983 and 1999, the profits of the Top 200 firms grew by 362 percent, while the number of people they employ grew by just 14 percent.