COVID-19 has been good to China's billionaires. Between August last and this China's richest saw the fastest pace of wealth creation.
The Hurun Research Institute this week released the Hengchang Shaofang-Hurun China Rich List 2020 - a ranking of the richest individuals in China. To be included one has to have a net worth of 2 billion yuan ($290 million).
The total wealth of the people in the list jumped 54% to $4.0 trillion from $1.5 trillion. The 2020 list includes 2,398 individuals - which is 32%, or 579, more compared with 2019.
Of these 2,398 people, 1,921 saw their wealth grow compared with 949 last year. On the other hand, 641 persons saw their wealth shrink or remain unchanged - down from 1,136 from last year. Dropping off the lst were 164.
"This year has seen the biggest wealth increase in the 22 years of the Hurun China Rich List," said Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report chairperson and chief researcher.
He ascribed the large rise in billionaire numbers despite the pandemic to the stock markets boom and a flurry of new listings. He said this combination led to the creation of five new dollar billionaires in China each week over the past year.
"The world has never seen this much wealth created in just one year," Hoogewerf said. "China's entrepreneurs have done much better than expected. Despite COVID-19 they have risen to record levels."
Hoogewerf said the Hurun China Rich List recorded more wealth created in 2020than the previous five years combined. This suggests the structure of the Chinese economy has evolved, moving away from traditional sectors like manufacturing and real estate, toward the new economy.
"China's rich-listers added $1.5 trillion, the equivalent of half the UK's annual gross domestic product, to take them to $4 trillion, more than the gross domestic product of Germany, the fourth biggest economy in the world," Hoogewerf said.
For the third consecutive year, the richest person in China is Jack Ma, 56, whose wealth rose 45% to $58.8 billion on the back of the impending initial public offering of financial technology company Ant and a strong performance by e-commerce company Alibaba. Despite giving away more than $10 billion, Ma is still No. 1 on the list.
Pony Ma, 49, of Tencent is second, with his wealth up 50% to $57.4 billion on account of Tencent's gaming business. His Wechat service is also expanding. Zhong Shanshan, 66, of YST shot into the top three with $53.7 billion.
"The Top 3 are neck and neck - all making it to No. 1 (at some stage of) this year," Hoogewerf said. "Pony Ma started the year as No. 1, Zhong Shanshan was No. 1 for an hour on the day of his initial public offering in September but Jack Ma took the official prize on the China Rich List."
