Jiangsu Shagang Group, China's largest private steel enterprise, reported revenues of 145.2 billion yuan in 2008, beating Lenovo to become the No. 1 private company last year, according to a survey report released Wednesday by All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC).

Lenovo followed behind with 114.59 billion yuan in profits, and Suning ranked the third with 102.342 billion yuan.

Shagang Group also joined the Fortune 500 list in 2008 for the first time as the only mainland private enterprise.

For the past 10 years Lenovo was sitting in the No. 1 position, but reported its largest loss in the last fiscal year. CEO Yang Yuanqing said this is mainly because overseas sales declined due to the global financial crisis.

Shagang's flexible operating strategy is the main contributor for its excellent performance even though the steel industry was heavily hit by financial crisis.

ACFIC also said China's private enterprises showed high resilience and performed well in the economic downturn.

The standard to be included in China's top 500 private enterprises increased 14.98 percent to 2.97 billion yuan in 2008 from 2.583 billion yuan the year before. The total revenue of the top 500 private enterprises in 2008 amounted to 4.109901 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.69 percent year-on-year.