(Adnkronos) – Billionaires in China are increasingly fewer. This is according to the Financial Times, which analyzed the annual “rich list” published by the Hurun foundation and which shows that the Asian giant has lost about a third of its billionaires in the last three years. Among the main reasons would be government restrictions, weakness in some sectors of the economy and the depressed stock markets. From a peak of 1,185 in 2021, Hurun reported that the number of billionaires (in dollars) has shrunk to 753, a 36% drop far exceeding the 10% drop in the value of the renminbi against the dollar over the same period. In the last year alone, the number of billionaires has decreased by 16%, while the renminbi has depreciated by just 2.5% against the dollar.
The Hurun list has seen a clear turnover, with older entrepreneurs, such as real estate developers, giving way to new faces such as Zhang Yiming, head of ByteDance. The 41-year-old founder of the company that owns TikTok and its Chinese equivalent Douyin has become the country’s richest person for the first time, with a net worth of $49 billion, despite his company being in the crosshairs of the US government for some time. Zhang ousted the “bottled water king”, 70-year-old Zhong Shanshan, ‘leader’ for three years until his main company, Nongfu Spring, saw its share price collapse 40% after being accused on social media of being “pro-Japanese”.
The rich list, which also includes entrepreneurs from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, has seen an unprecedented decline since the ranking began, as “the Chinese economy and stock markets have had a tough year,” said Hurun Report Chairman Rupert Hoogewerf. The decline in the number of super-rich is also the result of the ‘fall’ of the old guard of wealthy real estate developers, decimated by the collapse of the once-booming Chinese real estate market.
China’s e-commerce billionaires have been hit hard by the crackdown, but have proven more resilient. Pony Ma, founder of Tencent, the company behind the superapp WeChat, ranked third on the list, while Colin Huang, the founder of Pinduoduo and Temu, came in fourth. Chris Xu Yangtian, founder of international clothing platform Shein, ranked 76th with a net worth of $7 billion. “The new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs are much more international than their predecessors,” Hurun said in the report. Jack Ma of Alibaba, who topped the list in 2020 before disappearing from public view, ranked 10th this year.
Hurun said 15% of the rich list live outside mainland China, in Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan, while 30 members live in the United States and Singapore, with the Asian city-state becoming increasingly popular as an offshore haven for Chinese billionaires. The wealthy continue to have political clout: about 7% are members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, or its parliament, the National People’s Congress. Compared to 10 years ago, today, entrepreneurs in the smartphone and new energy sectors occupy a prominent place on the list, such as Robin Zeng, head of lithium battery maker Catl, Li Zhenguo of solar panel maker Longi, Lei Jun of smartphone maker Xiaomi and Frank Wang of drone maker Dji.
