As statistics go it takes some beating – six of the world’s richest self-made women are from mainland China. And – as the list’s compiler Rupert Hoogewerf repeatedly stresses – those are just the ones we know about.
Leading the pack with an estimated worth of US$10 billion is Zhang Yin who with her husband and brother controls almost three-quarters of the Nine Dragons Paper empire. Number 2 is Beijing-based real estate developer Zhang Xin and the sixth, seventh, ninth and tenth places are filled by women with interests ranging from property, to finance, steel and flavourings.
In comparison, Oprah Winfrey is eighth.
So why are so many mainland women amassing so much wealth? Mr Hoogewerf says part of the reason is that for many having a family amounts to a career break of 10 weeks. Women in China take less time out from their work to have a child, are generally limited to having one and often pass responsibility for raising children to their parents.
But it is also part of a bigger story about money in China and that when future generations look back on 2007 they will see it as the year of the billionaire.
Mr Hoogewerf and two Shanghai friends started the annual rich list in 1999 and have since seen it change from a kiss of death – several people on it have been jailed – to a widely watched indicator of how the flushest individuals are doing.
The change has coincided with a fundamental shift in the public perception of the rich.
“There has been a huge change in the image of wealth,” he said.
“The general view [used to be] that anybody who had money was corrupt.
“Jack Ma [founder of online marketplace Alibaba] is now a hero to young Chinese.”
To get into Mr Hoogewerf’s top 800 you have to have more than a mountain of cash – you have to be born and bred on the mainland and your assets have to be verifiable. The wealth estimates are conservative and Mr Hoogewerf urges people to “take the list as at least figures”.
It used to be that US$6 million was enough to earn a place among the richest 50 mainlanders but the cut-off mark has steadily crept up. This year there were more than 100 US dollar billionaires. The top two were 26-year-old Yan Huiyan who was given her father’s shares in property company Country Gardens and Nine Dragons paper tycoon Ms Zhang.
Mr Hoogewerf suggests there could be more than double that number of billionaires but not enough is known about them, including Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng.
“There are probably 250 dollar billionaires in China today,” he says.
Powered by China’s drive towards urbanisation and the growth of the country’s capital markets, about a quarter have based their fortunes on the real estate while manufacturing was the key industry for 22 per cent. Other rising sources of wealth were finance, retail, IT, mining and energy.
Mr Hoogewerf says the average age is 47 and they took about 14 years to amass their piles. Their head offices tend to be concentrated in the economic powerhouses of Guangdong and Zhejiang, two provinces that also lead the country as birthplaces of entrepreneurs. Their preferred overseas holiday destinations are Australia, France and continental USA and, when shopping for luxury brands, they choose to buy BMW, Louis Vuitton and Mercedes Benz.
In addition, their wealth is growing at a faster rate that of their counterparts in the West and the rest of the roaring economy.
“With the Olympics now only a year away, there is a huge surge of confidence exuding from China’s top entrepreneurs, whose wealth is growing much faster than GDP,” the report says.
“Laws put into place to protect private property a growing sense that the government is now relying on private enterprise to drive forward the economy has boosted their confidence.
“The economic landscape is comparable to the US in the sixties having moved on from the robber baron period of the late nineteenth century, when vast areas of the economy were wide open to be exploited by smart, ruthless and fast-moving entrepreneurs.”
Mr Hoogewerf says this year has been a coming of age for personal wealth in China but there is still more growth opportunities “as China’s top entrepreneurs turn their sights to the vast undeveloped and largely unregulated economic hinterland”.
That hinterland is also a heartland of poverty. The Asian Development Bank says China one of the highest levels of income equality of developing countries in Asia and one of the biggest recent contributors to wealth gap is the difference in incomes between urban and rural areas. The ABD also says uneven growth in income between urban households is playing a part.
Mr Hoogewerf says entrepreneurs are well aware of the growing wealth gap and are beginning to give generously, including octogenarian Yu Pengnian who has handed over US$260 million – the lion’s share of his money – to a cataract operation fund.
