Beijing Now Home to the World's Most Billionaires

By Isabella Farr

Beijing now leads the world in terms of the number of billionaires per city, with 100 billionaires living in the Chinese capital. According to Hurun Report’s recent global rich list, Beijing overtook New York City, which has 95 listed billionaires, to become the 'Billionaire Capital of the World.' Hong Kong and Shanghai came in fourth and fifth, with 64 and 50 billionaires respectively.

Over the past year, Beijing produced 32 new billionaires, despite its slowing economy. Although the yuan has continued to devalue and the Chinese stock market remains volatile, Chinese individuals are still accumulating large sums of money.

Wang Jianlin, who heads up China’s largest commercial property company, Dalian Wanda, topped the Beijing billionaire list with a net worth of USD26 billion.

The founder of Hurun, Rupert Hoogewerf, stated that China’s wealth could be attributed to China allowing for new initial public offerings in the Chinese market. These 32 new billionaires, however, could have been the lucky ones, as Hoogewerf affirmed that the number of billionaires would have reached almost 150 if the calculations had been made at the peak of the market in 2015.

Hurun, a Shanghai-based company, may not be the best way to calculate China’s wealth. Hoogewerf stated that Beijing’s ranking was still an understatement of the scale of individual wealth in China, and Hurun was only able to report on about 50 percent of the country’s billionaires.

As Chinese billionaires keep their money hidden from Chinese authorities, this statement also suggests that wealthy government officials may be concealing assets. In this way, Hurun is merely an estimate, but gives good indication of how many individuals keep their wealth out of sight in China. "We do our best to find [hidden money], but they go to such extraordinary lengths to hide it,” said Hoodewerf.

[Image via Optofluidics]

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