With 16 billion US dollars in her kitty, a 26-year-old Chinese woman, daughter of a real estate tycoon, has become the richest person in Asia, Forbes Asia’s 2007 ranking of the communist nation’s wealthiest said on Monday.
Yang Huiyan, daughter of Country Garden Holdings Company Limited’s co-founder Yeung Kwok Keung, acquired his father’s shareholding in 2005.
The previous year’s Number 1, Wong Kwong Yu, fell nine places to Number 10 even though his wealth increased by 56 per cent to 3.6 billion dollars from 2.3 billion a year ago.
Net worth: 120 bn
All the 40 people on the Forbes Asia’s 2007 China Rich List are billionaires.
Their combined net worth of 120 billion US dollars, up three times from last year’s 38 billion US dollars, according to a Forbes press release.
“Household incomes are rising rapidly, and a growing number of people are moving into cities from rural areas.
“Those trends are creating great business opportunity for property developers in the country,” Forbes senior editor and compiler of the China Rich List Russell Flannery said.
Shareholdings
To compile this list, Forbes Asia looked at shareholdings in public companies as well as private companies.
Unlike the Forbes billionaire list, this ranking has been broadened to include some family fortunes, the release said.
