China’s billionaire wealth, number fall as economy slows

An annual list of the wealthy in China showed today, Tuesday, that their wealth declined at the largest pace in more than two decades this year, mainly due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, Beijing’s measures to eliminate the Corona virus and the decline in stock markets in the mainland and Hong Kong.

According to “Reuters”, the Hurun Rich List, which ranks the richest people in China with a net worth of no less than five billion yuan (692 million dollars), stated that only 1,305 people managed to achieve this number this year, down 11% from last year. Their total wealth was $3.5 trillion, down 18%.

Meanwhile, the number of individuals with a fortune of $10 billion each fell by 29 to 56, and the number of billionaires decreased by 239 to 946 this year.

“This year has seen the largest decline in the Hurun China Rich List in the last 24 years,” said Robert Hoogwerf, chairman and chief researcher at research firm Huron Report, which compiles the list.

The global economic outlook this year has been severely affected by the war in Ukraine and slowing economic growth in China, which in turn has been exacerbated by the country’s tough policies on the Corona virus and a prolonged real estate stagnation.

A two-year regulator’s crackdown on China’s technology giants such as Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings has hurt investor confidence, as have fears that President Xi Jinping will sacrifice growth for political ideology in his third term. Stock markets in Hong Kong and the mainland have fallen in the past few weeks

At the top of their declining fortunes in the 2022 list, businesswoman Yang Huiyan, the main shareholder in Country Garden Holdings, which suffers from debt problems like other real estate developers in China, as her fortune fell by 15.7 billion dollars.

Zhong Shanshan, owner of Nongfu Spring Water Bottling Company and Beijing and Tantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise for Vaccine Development, both listed companies, ranked first on the list for the second year in a row, with a fortune that grew 17 percent to $65 billion. ‎

Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, owner of Tik Tok, came in second place, but his fortune fell 28 percent to $35 billion due to the decline in the valuation of ByteDance. In third place was Zheng Yukon, president of battery giant CATL.

Bonnie Ma, founder of Tencent, recorded the second largest drop in wealth, with a value of 14.6 billion dollars, amid the decline in technology stock prices, to occupy the fifth place on the list. Ali Baba founder Jack Ma and his family fell four places to take the ninth place.