The US Defense Department on Thursday unveiled its fiscal 2004 prime contracts awards to the top 100 companies, led by Lockheed Martin Corp. with 20.7 billion US dollars.

The Pentagon's prime contract awards totaled 230.7 billion dollars in 2004, 21.7 billion dollars - or about 10.4 percent - more than in fiscal 2003, a report released by the Department.

Lockheed Martin was followed by the Boeing Co. with 17.1 billion dollars, and Northrop Grumman Corp., which received 11.9 billion dollars in prime contract awards in fiscal 2004 that ended in September last year.

Among the top 10 companies were General Dynamics Corp., which was awarded prime contracts worth 9.6 billion dollars, Raytheon Co., 8.5 billion dollars, and Halliburton Co., a oil-services giant which received 8.0 billion dollars in prime contract awards. Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive before he joined the Bush campaign in 2000.

Others in the top 10 companies that received the largest dollar volume of prime contract awards were United Technologies Corp. (5.1 billion dollars), Science Applications International Corp. (2.5 billion dollars), Computer Sciences Corp. (2.4 billion dollars) and Humana, Inc. (2.4 billion dollars).

The Pentagon report, "100 Companies Receiving the Largest Dollar Volume of Prime Contract Awards," is published annually, and does not include those parts of indefinite quantity contracts that have not been translated into specific orders to business firms or those contracts that have not yet become mutually binding agreements between the government and the company.

Source: Xinhua