Turkey's largest oil refining company, the Turkish Petroleum Refineries Corporation (TÜPRAŞ), has retained its spot as number one on the list of the top 500 industrial companies in Turkey prepared by the İstanbul Chamber of Commerce (İSO).

TÜPRAŞ has been at the head of the list since 2005. It came first in earnings, with TL 15.5 billion from the sale of its total net production last year. TÜPRAŞ's share in total sales of all production by all companies in Turkey, however, declined from 11.4 percent in 2008 to 7.4 percent in 2009. The İSO report attributed this drop to declines in world commodity and crude oil prices.TÜPRAŞ was followed by the state-owned Electricity Generation Holding Company (EÜAŞ), which generated TL 6.53 billion in sales from its net production. EÜAŞ was also the only public company that was among the top 10 on the list. French carmaker Renault's Turkish subsidiary Oyak-Renault ranked third with TL 5.47 billion.According to research carried out by the İSO, EÜAŞ was the industrial company that enjoyed the highest profit last year, with TL 1.42 billion. Last year the company registered a loss of TL 652.4 million. TÜPRAŞ ranked second on the list of most profit-generating industrial companies, with TL 776.93 million, followed by Philsa Philip Morris, which made a profit of TL 673.94 million.Oyak-Renault was named the company with the highest exports, earning $3.01 billion from exports. With $2.04 billion, Ford Otomotiv ranked second on this list, and Tofaş came in third, generating $2 billion from its exports.The share of the top 50 industrial companies in total sales of production by all of the firms in Turkey fell from 52.6 percent in 2008 to 48.5 percent in 2009. Their share in total exports dropped from 56.5 percent in 2008 to 50.1 percent in 2009. Their contribution to employment rose to 32.3 percent last year.The top 50 companies on the list generated 5.3 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) last year, while also conducting 22.7 percent of the country's overall exports. However, the exports of all 500 companies on the list suffered a 31.7 percent drop in 2009 compared to the year before.The list has 153 companies with foreign partner shares, accounting for 33.4 percent of all sales of total production by the top 500 companies. Last year 148 companies had foreign partners. 28 July 2010, WednesdayTODAY'S ZAMAN  ANKARA