Mega-nationals: World's Biggest Companies That Beat National GDPs

The world's biggest companies are so large and influential that they exceed the national GDP of their home country in some cases, according to a new report in The Economist.

Using the Dow Jones Global Index to identify firms whose revenues ranked highest in the country of their listing, the report found that the world's largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, achieved revenue worth 161 percent of Luxembourg's GDP for 2011.

Essar Energy achieves revenues equating to 132 percent of national GDP in its home country, Mauritius, while Royal Dutch Shell currently accounts for 56 percent of GDP in the Netherlands.

The report is titled 'The Nokia Effect', and is designed to find out whether the dominance of Nokia in Finland is reflected and replicated in other countries.

The authors cite figures from the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA), which show that troubled telecommunications company Nokia contributed a quarter of Finland's growth from 1998 to 2007, and accounted for 30 percent of the country's research and development spend over the same period.

During the height of its fortune, the report said that Nokia's corporation tax payments accounted for nearly a fifth of all Finnish corporation tax revenue.

Nokia is now on the brink of collapse having shed around 40,000 employees, and sold off assets such as its luxury smartphone brand, its Qt software business and a raft of patents.

Its share price has dropped 90 percent since 2007 and ratings agencies Moody's, S&P and Fitch have all downgraded its credit rating to junk status. The company is set to have just €2.7bn in net cash by the end of 2012.

The Economist report highlighted that Samsung, "whose revenues are twice Nokia's, has half its clout as a share of GDP, [demonstrating that] South Korea's economy is more diversified.

"The importance of Nokia to Finland looks like a one-off."