Washington, Sep 4 (IANS): India claims the second-biggest haul after China in Asia's Fab 50 with 11 Indian companies, up from seven last year, figuring in Forbes 2012 list of 50 best publicly traded companies in Asia-Pacific.

The US magazine's 2012 list sees the return of the big Indian IT software services and consulting firms, HCL and Tata Consultancy, while an Indian drug company, Sun Pharmaceutical, breaks into the elite ranks for the first time.

Once again China dominates the list with 23 mainland entries, the same as a year ago. Malaysia, Japan, Philippines and Singapore each had one representative on this year's list. South Korea could only muster four companies this year, down from eight last year.

A slowing economy weeded out the merely good companies from the truly great ones, Forbes said noting 15 companies are new this year. Another ten returned after falling off in past years.

Several leading names that claimed a spot year after year-such as Australia's Wesfarmers, India's Mahindra & Mahindra and Taiwan's HTC-failed to repeat this time.

Titan Industries, India's jewellery and watch king is also profiled by

Forbes among the well-managed, fast-growing outfits

Among executives and founders of these Asia Fab 50 companies, who also figure in Forbes list of billionaires are Uday Kotak and Aloke Lohia, one-third owner of Indorama Ventures, ranked eight with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion.

The companies were chosen from a pool of 1,295 that had at least $3 billion in annual revenue or market cap.

The Indian companies in the list with their ranks were: Tata Consultancy Services (4), ITC (5), HDFC Bank (6), Bharti Airtel (9), Tata Motors (16), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (18), Bajaj Auto (27), Kotak Mahindra Bank (29), HCL Technologies (33), Titan Industries (37) and Asian Paints (41).