OREANDA-NEWS. July 15, 2011. Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An", "the Company" or "the Group", HKEX: 2318; SSE: 601318) is pleased to announce that Ping An has been ranked 327th in U.S. Fortune magazine's Global Top 500 enterprises this year. Of the 61 Chinese enterprises that have made it to the list, Ping An is ranked first among the non-stated-owned companies. This latest recognition has come after Ping An's inclusion in other prestigious rankings such as top 500 companies in Forbes's "Global Listed Companies 2000" and U.K.'s Financial Times "Global 500", reported the press-centre of Ping An Insurance.

This year, 61 companies are included in Fortunes' Global Top 500 List in the PRC, 15 more than the previous year. This is the 8th year where an increasing number of Chinese companies are being included in the list, including a total of 4 Chinese insurance companies. Ping An, with US\\$28.9 billion in revenue and USD 2.557 billion in profit, jumped 56 places from last year.

Fortune Global 500 is widely recognized as one of the most authoritative rankings of the business performance of companies from around the world. Companies are measured primarily by their annual revenues and profits in 2010 and are assessed by their corporate influence, scale and capability. Looking back on 2010, Ping An, as an integrated financial services group with three core insurance, banking and investment businesses, had a successful year that was filled with good tidings.

The Group achieved net profit of RMB17.938 billion, with total income amounting to RMB195.814 billion, representing an increase of 23.9% and 28.1% year-on-year, respectively. Written premiums of Ping An Life rose 20.2% to RMB150 billion; premium income of Ping An Property Insurance surged 61.4% to approximately RMB60 billion while market share was up by 2.5 percentage points to 15.4%. Ping An Bank's net profit grew by 60.8% to RMB1.737 billion. The accumulated number of credit cards issued exceeded 6 million and the business remained profitable for three straight years, setting a new standard for the banking industry. Ping An Securities achieved a 48.7% growth in net profit to RMB1.594 billion. The investment banking business continued to play a leading role in the SME Board and GEM Board. It was the lead underwriter of 39 IPOs and 11 re-financing projects, as well as for the number of stocks it had underwritten and the income from underwriting IPOs.

Ping An's key to outstanding financial performance is its comprehensive and highly effective corporate governance and professional investment capabilities. It also relies on excellent customer service capability and continuous and active fulfillment of a company's corporate social responsibility. In 2010, Ping An fulfilled its pledge to "One-day claim payment" for its automobile insurance operation and "E-service" for life insurance, which had won the trust and support from customers.

In 2011, to further raise the standard of its services, Ping An announced two initiatives to upgrade services, including the "3-day claim payment for standard cases with full information" initiative for its life insurance operation, and the "Upgraded service - Free rescue on road" for its automobile insurance operation. In the first four months of the year, Ping An Automobile Insurance paid 99.5% of all claims within one working day, while Ping An Life Insurance paid out 99.7% of standard claims within 3 working days. In response to the government's call for a low-carbon economy, Ping An has lowered carbon emissions and reduced energy consumption throughout its offices, cutting the use of water and electricity per person by 10% and the use of paper by 83 tonnes.

Ping An is the most frequently included Chinese company on the list. Apart from Ping An, other well-known non state-owned Chinese enterprises such as Shenzhen's Huawei Technologies (351th) and Jiangsu's Shagang Group Jiangsu (366th) have also been included in this year's list.