Five women from the Middle East figure in the top 100 of the Forbes' magazine's annual list of the world's most powerful women.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel topped the list as the most powerful woman in the world, while Maha Al Ghunaim, chairman and managing director, Global Investment House, Kuwait, Shaikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, the First Lady of Qatar, Queen Rania of Jordan, Vidya Chhabria, chairman, Jumbo Group, UAE and Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of Economy, UAE, also figure prominently in the list.

Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi has risen to the second place, the company said in a statement.

"Merkel continued to impress the world with her cool leadership at two back-to-back summits, and stuck to her principles, getting G8 leaders to agree to significant cuts in carbon emissions, among other things," Forbes said.

It said Wu Yi was a rising star in China's Communist Party, having hammered out trade agreements with Russia and overseeing the country's negotiations for accession to the World Trade Organization.

The magazine said the ranking is based on a composite of visibility -- measured by press citations -- and economic impact.

The biggest mover on this year's list was Ho Ching -- chief executive of Singapore state investment firm Temasek Holdings and wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong -- who jumped to third place from 36th last year, trumping US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who fell from second to fourth place.

'Ho Ching is rarely seen or heard from. But increasingly she is a force to be reckoned with, as her dealmaking ambitions span the globe,' Forbes said in a short profile of Ho. Reuters

World's 10 most powerful women in 2007 according to Forbes: 

1 Angela Merkel      

2 Wu Yi               Vice Premier               China

3 Ho Ching            CEO, Temasek Holdings      Singapore

4 Condoleezza Rice    Secretary of State         US

5 Indra K. Nooyi      Chairman, CEO, PepsiCo     US

6 Sonia Gandhi        Congress party chief      India

7 Cynthia Carroll     CEO, Anglo American        UK

8 Patricia A. Woertz  Cochairman, ADM            US

9 Irene Rosenfeld     Chairman, CEO, Kraft Foods US

10 Patricia Russo     CEO, Alcatel-Lucent