China's rich see personal wealth shrink by nearly 10% in 2012
Chang Ya-yun and Staff Reporter 2012-11-08 10:55
A securities company in Chongqing. (Photo/Xinhua)
China's rich have seen their wealth shrink in recent years, with the estimated wealth of some of the country's biggest tycoons eroding by up to 1 trillion yuan (US$160 billion), several rich lists published in recent years show.
China saw the creation of numerous wealthy people over the last 30 years after the country began a process of economic reforms and despite the fact that the threshold for being included in the rich list is constantly raised. This year, China's rich saw their wealth diminish by nearly 10%, the Chinese-language Beijing News reported.
Forbes magazine, Hurun Report and New Fortune magazine have published their respective annual lists of the richest Chinese since 1999, the report said.
Data showed that the threshold for entering Hurun's rich list was 50 million yuan (US$8 million) in 1999, and 50 people were included in the list at the time. In 2012, up to 1,000 people were included in the list, even though the threshold was raised to 1.8 billion yuan (US$288.2 million), which is 36 times the limit fixed for making it to the list when it was first published in 1999.
Over the past 13 years, China's rich have seen their wealth shrink three times, including this year; in 2002, which was the second year after China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO); and in 2008, when the global financial crisis erupted.
Since 2008, Hurun's statistics showed that the wealthy who had earned a big fortune in the capital markets had seen their wealth contract on account of the sluggish property and financial markets. Some with extensive property holdings had seen their asset values drop by up to 60%. The Forbes 400 list also showed that these 400 rich people saw their wealth shrink by nearly 1 trillion yuan (US$160 billion) during the year.
However, China's well-off saw their means appreciate significantly after the Chinese government launched a 4 trillion yuan ( economic stimulus program in 2009 following the financial crisis.
In the 2009 Hurun Rich List, the average wealth of the top 100 richest people in China was pegged at 3.88 billion yuan (US$621.2 million), a growth of 41.2% from 2008. The Forbes rich list in 2009 also showed that China's 40 richest people's total assets doubled to US$106 billion from the US$52 billion registered in 2008.
Experts said that policy was the single most important factor affecting the increase and decrease in the rich's wealth.
Following the Chinese economic downturn this year, the Hurun Rich List showed that the average wealth of the 1,000 richest in the list now stood at 5.4 billion yuan (US$864.1 million), which a year-on-year decline of 8.5%. In the Forbes' 400 richest Chinese List published in 2012, the wealthiest 100 Chinese saw their fortune being eroded by 7%.
The Hurun report said that the shrinkage in the wealth of the rich in 2008 was due to the sluggish stock market, which saw the stock index dropping to less than 2,000 points from an original high of 6,000 points. This year, the Chinese economic slowdown and the slowing property market have been the main contributors to their worth dwindling.
The wealth of the affluent was expected to increase further in 2013 because the property and stock markets were likely to recover and local governments in more than 10 provinces had announced an economic stimulus program worth more than 10 trillion yuan (US$1.6 trillion).
