From our wire services

Sometime before the end of the year, a mile stone in American capitalism will pass.

Wal-Mart Stores' annual sales are on track to exceed those of General Motors, the largest American company for much of the last half-century.

Soaring oil prices. will help Exxon Mobil edge Wal-Mart out of the top slot this year, but oil company's fortunes routinely rise and fall with the state of affairs in the Mideast.

In contrast, Wal-Mart's relentless and rapid rise is transforming whole industries, from consumer manufacturing to retailing and food processing and sales. Indeed, its reach is so broad now that Wal-Mart is propagating important elements of the new economy, including globalization and the use of technology to drive productivity gains.

Wal-Mart did not seem a likely heavyweight in 1962, the year that Sam Walton opened his first store in Rogers, Arkansas with a sign saying "Wal-Mart Discount City. We sell for less." But the retailer has built a nearly $200-million-a-year empire by selling astonishing quantities of items from lawn mowers to toilet paper.

Total annual retail spending in America, excluding automobiles and boats, is roughly $2.3 trillion. Walmart's domestic sales for the fiscal year ended in January, were $142 billion, or 16.2 percent of the total. WalMart sells 19 million pairs of women's jeans a year and roughly 19,634 pairs of shoes an hour.

In keeping with its founders determinedly humble and press-shy personal, Wal-Mart has no plans to celebrate its ascendancy.

"We don't keep track," Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's chief executive, said.

To keep its prices low, Wal-Mart is always pushing its suppliers, an army of more than 65,000 companies, to become leaner machines that examine every penny they spend. This ruthless drive to cut fat has clearly reshaped the practices of businesses that have worked with Wal-Mart and those that compete against them.