The number of billionaires in mainland China slipped slightly last year as wealth creation was subdued by a crackdown on the technology and property sectors, according to the latest study by New York-headquartered Wealth-X. Hong Kong, with the sixth-largest billionaire population in the world, ahead of countries such as Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, experienced relatively slow wealth creation too, as it lost some of its shine as an international business hub, the wealth data provider said. From 410 in 2020, there were just 400 billionaires in 2021 in mainland China, a drop of 2.4%, placing second ahead of Germany but a long way behind the U.S. which has 975 billionaires with wealth that grew by a fifth to USD4.45 trillion. Though the combined wealth of the Chinese billionaires rose by 11.3% to USD1.45 trillion, this was one of the lowest gains among the top 15 countries in the study.
“In Asia’s largest billionaire markets, robust gains in India contrasted with more subdued development in China and Hong Kong. This partly reflected differing approaches to virus suppression, but also regulatory factors,” the latest report said. India’s billionaire population rose by 19.2% to 124, while their cumulative wealth surged 21.4% to USD384 billion. Beijing’s initiatives to reform its real estate sector, as well as the curbing of large technology firms “weighed on corporate earnings and Chinese equities,” it added. Tech companies including Alibaba, TikTok owner ByteDance, WeChat operator Tencent and ride hailing company Didi Chuxing had their share sales or deals rolled back in the last two years as Beijing issued various rules that either effectively barred them from seeking fresh capital overseas or made it harder to acquire data and personal information that could be monetized. China Evergrande, Sunac China, Guangzhou R&F Properties and Greenland Holdings were just some of the Chinese developers forced to delay their debt payments as Beijing’s introduction of its “three red lines” policy in 2020 made it difficult for them to access new loans.
Hong Kong was home to 114 billionaires last year, up 2.7% from 2020. Their total wealth rose 1.9% to USD287 billion. Among cities, this placed Hong Kong second globally, behind New York’s 138. Hong Kong had the third-highest density of billionaires, with one for every 59,516 inhabitants. Kuwait led this index with one billionaire for every 33,090 residents, while San Francisco had one for every 56,209 heads of population. Hong Kong, however, was considered an outlier, along with Brazil, because the combined net worth of the billionaires was considerably lower than in other places, the South China Morning Post reports.
