Top companies should adapt to slower growth: experts

Li Jin, chief researcher at the China Enterprise Research Institute, said large Chinese companies must adapt to a transition period in which China's economy gears down to moderate growth after the surging growth of the past three decades.

China's potential growth rate for the medium and long term will drop gradually, and the economy will slow from rapid annual growth of around 10 percent to an annual average of 7 percent, Li said.

China's economic growth slowed to 7.5 percent in the second quarter from 7.7 percent in the first quarter. The country has set its annual economic growth target at 7.5 percent for 2013.

Li predicted that China's top 500 companies will see further decline in their revenue growth rates due to slow global economic growth and the drop in China's potential growth rate.

"In the face of slowing growth of market demand, many companies have not yet mastered how to make profits by pursuing technological progress and raising productivity," said Miao Rong, deputy head of the research department under the China Enterprise Confederation.

The majority of Chinese companies have grown used to making profits from the input of production factors and the rapid expansion of market capacity during a period of dramatic economic growth, Miao said.

Shrinking economic growth will force large Chinese companies to consider strategic transformations, shifting from an emphasis on growth pace to growth quality and from an input-driven growth pattern to an innovation-driven one, according to Miao.

Miao suggested that companies reevaluate their growth patterns and positions in the industrial chain based on the reality of slower economic growth, and reshape their strategies in a timely manner.