The number of billionaires in China has seen its biggest drop in 24 years this year, according to an annual ranking, as the world’s second-largest economy slows under the impact of its strict zero-Covid policy and the housing crisis.
According to the ranking prepared by the Chinese firm Hurun and published this Tuesday, 1,305 people in China have an estimated fortune of at least 5,000 million yuan (691 million dollars), a figure that has been reduced by 11% in a year. His accumulated fortune is around 3,500 million dollars, 18% less. Both in the number of billionaires and in accumulated wealth, it is the biggest drop in 24 years.
China is the last major economy to carry out a strict health policy against Covid, but the repeated confinements that this entails have disrupted production and supply chains, slowing down activity.
Bottled Water Billionaire Progression
Chinese billionaires also suffered on the stock market, in a context of a takeover of the high-tech sector by the Chinese authorities and uncertainties linked to the war in Ukraine.
Property developer Yang Huiyan, who runs Country Garden Holding, has lost the largest personal fortune, $15.7 billion this year. Pony Ma, founder of the high-tech giant Tencent, saw it grow to 14.6 billion.
The richest Chinese is Zhong Shanshan, founder of the Nongfu Spring bottled water company, whose fortune has increased by 17% to 65,000 million dollars.
Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, the parent company of the social network TikTok, is in second place but his fortune has fallen 28% to 35 billion, while the value of his company is falling.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma fell from fifth to ninth place after losing 29% of his fortune to $25.7 billion. Almost 300 Chinese who were on this list last year are no longer, most of them in the real estate sector, in crisis in China since 2020.
The chairman of real estate giant Evergrande, Xu Jiayin, has dropped out of the 100 richest list, relegated to 172nd place, as his company is awash in $300 billion in debt. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts 3.2% growth this year in China, which would be its slowest pace in four decades, excluding the pandemic.
Source: BFM TV
