Young tycoons top Forbes' China list

 
The top ten businesspeople on China's richest-person list.
 

A 37-year-old appliance merchant topped a list of China's richest businesspeople released Thursday by the business magazine Forbes, leading a group of young entrepreneurs in China. Wong Kwong-yu, founder of Gome Appliances, saw his wealth expand to $2.3 billion, according to Forbes.

One quarter of those on this year's list are under age 40, reflecting the fact that most of China's fortunes have been made in the past decade as retail, Internet and real estate companies sprang up to serve a booming consumer market.

"China's richest are a lot younger than America's richest," said Russell Flannery, Forbes' Shanghai bureau chief, at a news conference.

No. 2 on the list was property developer Xu Rongmao, with a fortune of $2.1 billion, followed by Larry Yung, chairman of conglomerate Citic Pacific, with $2 billion. Yung, also known as Rong Zhijian, was No. 1 last year.

The richest woman was No. 5 Zhang Yin, who built a paper-recycling business into Nine Dragons Paper Co., China's biggest maker of paperboard for packaging, at $1.5 billion.

Zhang was No. 1 on a competing list of China's richest released Oct. 11 by journalist Rupert Hoogewerf.

Flannery said Forbes calculated Zhang's wealth separately from the stakes that her husband and brother own in Nine Dragons. If their holdings were added together, the family would be No. 1 on the Forbes list.

Forbes noted that the average age of businesspeople on its China list was 46.5, compared with 65.7 for the comparable US list.

China's top 40 richest include six women, compared with seven in the US top 40, but the Chinese include self-made millionaires such as Zhang, while the American women inherited their wealth, Forbes said.

 本周四，《福布斯》杂志公布了“福布斯2006中国富豪榜”，家用电器零售商、“国美电器”创始人、37岁的黄光裕以23亿美元的总资产荣登榜首，成为中国一批年轻企业家的领军人物。

在今年的福布斯富豪榜上，有四分之一的入选者年龄不到40岁，这说明在过去十年中，随着中国零售业、互联网业及房地产业的异军突起，一批新贵应运而生。

福布斯上海分社社长范鲁贤在一个新闻发布会上说：“中国的富豪比美国的富豪年轻得多。”

地产大亨许荣茂以21亿美元的个人财富名列富豪榜第二位，而去年的首富、中信泰富集团总裁荣智健今年以20亿美元的资产排名第三。

于上月11日问鼎“胡润百富榜”的中国女首富、“废纸大王”张茵以15亿美元的个人资产名列福布斯榜第五，她创建的玖龙纸业是目前国内最大的包装纸生产商。

范鲁贤说，《福布斯》在计算张茵的资产总额时，没有将她丈夫和弟弟在玖龙纸业的资产算在内。如果全部加在一起，张茵的家族将成为今年福布斯榜的首富。

《福布斯》杂志指出，福布斯中国富豪榜上的富商平均年龄为46.5岁，而美国榜上富豪的平均年龄为65.7岁。

《福布斯》提到，福布斯中国富豪榜前40名中有六位女性，而美国有七位。但中国有像张茵这样靠创业起家的女富豪，而美国则主要是一些继承家族财产的女富豪。

（英语点津姗姗编辑）