Research in Motion (RIM), the digital company which has produced the well-known wireless handheld e-mail device Blackberry, has become the most valuable company in Canada, local media reported on Wednesday.

RIM's market capitalization reached 68.56 billion Canadian dollars (68.7 billion U.S. dollars) at the Toronto stock market (TSX) Wednesday morning, surpassing long-time front-runner Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), which stood at 68.23 billion Canadian dollars (68.3 billion U.S. dollars).

RIM took the top spot thanks to a huge run up in its share price Tuesday, followed by the news it had reached an agreement with Alcatel-Lucent for selling its Blackberry wireless device in China. So far this year, RIM's shares have risen by almost 150 percent onthe TSX.

The shares of RBC, who had held the market-cap top spot for two years, have fallen about 5 percent this year.

Earlier in 2005, Manulife Financial held the top spot in Canada's big companies list. It is now in third place, with a market capitalization of 62.28 billion Canadian dollars (62.3 billion U.S. dollars

Nortel Networks was the country's most valuable company during the tech boom of 1999-2000. Its market capitalization reached 400 billion Canadian dollars (400 billion U.S. dollars) in 2000, making up 36 percent of the entire worth of Toronto's benchmark index at the time. It is now worth less than 7 billion Canadian dollars (7 billion U.S. dollars).