The 2019 list of the Yangtze River Delta Top 100 Companies list was recently announced, including 36 companies from Zhejiang, more than any other province in the region.

The Yangtze River Delta is defined to include the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui, in addition to the municipality of Shanghai.

In terms of total company revenue, Zhejiang ranked second only to Shanghai. The top 100 companies generated total revenue of 14.4 trillion yuan ($2.05 trillion) last year, up 15.03 percent year-on-year.

In terms of profits, Alibaba, the internet behemoth based in Hangzhou, ranked top with annual net profits of 87.89 billion yuan, up 37.12 percent from a year earlier.

When it comes to R&D expenditure, an important indicator of a company's sustainable development capacity, Alibaba and Geely Auto based in Hangzhou ranked as the top two.

In recent years, many industries have been rapidly growing in the Yangtze River Delta region, such as smart manufacturing, integrated circuits, biopharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence, said Zhang Peirong, director of the consulting research department of the Shanghai Enterprises Association. He urged the top 100 companies to promote emerging industries in order to drive the integrated development of the region.