Chinese wealthy will surpass peer in US by 2025

Tencent's founder Pony Ma. [Photo/IC]

Around 2025, the China's richest man's personal wealth will match the US' richest man's, and will be in race to be the world's richest man, China's business magazine New Fortune said.

China's richest man's personal wealth was 6.1 billion yuan 15 years ago, or 70 times less than the US'. But now, the gap has shrunk to 2 times.

During the same period, the average of Chinese wealthy surged 25 times while the US' only increased 2.8 times.

According to the magazine's 2018 Chinese wealthy list, the top 10 tycoons' total wealth reached 1.72 trillion yuan, accounting for 18 percent of the combined wealth of the list's total 500, and the top 10's personal wealth has surpassed 100 billion yuan for the first time.

Tech giant Tencent's founder Pony Ma topped the list, with a fortune of 279 billion yuan, followed by Alibaba's Jack Ma, and Evergrande Group's Xu Jiayin, with their personal worth reaching 260 billion yuan, and 229 billion yuan, respectively.

As China's economic structure evolves, the rich list is also changing.

One fifth of rich in the 500 list are from information technology industry, and capital players are fading away from the list.

Among the top 10, four of them - Pony Ma, Jack Ma, Ding Lei (CEO of Chinese game developer NetEase Inc) and Lei Jun (founder of smartphone maker Xiaoxi) - are from TMT (telecommunications, media and technology) sectors.

Although the top 10 has three tycoons from real estate industry, the seven wealthy from the industry ranked in 2007 top 10 is gone.

The three real estate tycoons are Wang Jianlin from Dalian Wanda Group and his son Wang Sicong, Yang Huiyan from Country Garden Holdings, and Xu Jiayin.

The entrepreneurs with innovative thinking in manufacturing industry, and who focus on new economy sectors, are also awarded by markets.

Auto maker Geely's chairman Li Shufu, home appliances maker Midea's chairman He Xiangjian, and courier company SF Express' chairman Wang Wei are also in the top 10.