Top UK billionaires considerably richer than Chinese ones ... for now
However, note that we didn't say British billionaires there
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A rundown of the richest people in China has revealed that the very wealthiest British billionaires collectively boast more cash than their counterparts in the People's Republic.
The top ten wealthiest Chinese citizens are worth a total of £69.31billion ($109.3billion), according to an annual analysis by the Hurun Research Institute released today, whereas the Sunday Times Rich List reveals that the top ten British fatcats are worth a total of £93.4billion ($147.5billion).
However, this looks almost certain to change, based on the speed at which the Chinese superrich are raking in dosh. According to Hurun, the average wealth of the Hurun Top 1000 richest folk has shot up by 21 percent this year to a record high of around £659.5million ($1.04billion). This figure has more than doubled since the financial crash of 2008, when the average was about £278million ($439 million).
The cutoff point for inclusion in the list has also shot up to a record high of £206million($325 million), more than three times the 2008 cut off.
Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher, said:
“Strong performances in real estate and IT have driven China’s richest to new records.”
The richest person in China is real-estate guru Wang Jianlin, who is worth a whopping £13.9bn ($22bn). The wealthiest tech industry billionaire is Pony Ma Huateng, founder of Tencent, who is in third place with a fortune of £6.4bn ($10.1bn), followed by Robin Li Yanhong, owner of social network Baidu, in sixth place with £5.1bn ($8.1bn), and Jiang Bin & family - owners of component manufacturer GoerTek Inc - in joint tenth place with £3.9bn ($6.1bn).
Any analysis of Britain's richest people cannot fail to notice that few are actually from this green and pleasant land. Rather they have chosen to live here, perhaps having struck an amicable deal with Her Majesty's taxmen.
There are no tech billionaires among the top ten richest people in the UK and just three British citizens - David and Simon Reuben, whose fortune is shared, and Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster. Uzbek mining titan Alisher Usmanov is the richest person in the UK, with a fortune of £13.3bn ($21bn).
The average Chinese millionaire is aged 49.5, according to research from Spears Magazine, while they are about 55 years old in the UK.
Hurun Research estimated that a quarter of its Rich List 2013 were members of the Communist Party. ®
