(4 March 2021 – China) China added 259 billionaires last year, making the country the first in the world to have over 1,000 billionaires, according to the newly released 2021 Hurun Global Rich List.
In comparison, second best performer United States saw 70 new billionaires created, bringing its total to 696. The number of people breaking into the billion-dollar bracket in China is more than the rest of the world combined.
Leading the Chinese pack was Zhong Shanshan of bottled water giant Nongfu, who entered the list for the first time with an $85 billion fortune, putting him at number one in Asia and into Hurun's global top 10.
“As stock markets boom, driven partly by quantitative easing, a flurry of new listings have minted eight new billionaires a week for the past year,” said Hurun Report Chairman and Chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf. The past year saw the biggest wealth increase of the past decade.
“Asia has, for the first time in perhaps hundreds of years, more billionaires than the rest of the world combined,” said Mr Hoogewerf. “Wealth creation is moving to Asia.”