The April 2003 issue of the Guangdong-based magazine New Fortune published the nation's first list of the wealthiest Chinese people. Among the top 400, 62 are from ZhejiangProvince and 48 from GuangdongProvince, the two provinces making up over one-fourth of the total. Adding Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu, half of the wealthiest came from these provinces and municipalities.
The 400 people, each in possession of a fortune no less than 200 million yuan, boast a total fortune equivalent to 303.1 billion yuan, almost the GDP of Guizhou Province with a population of 38 million for three years to put together.Rong Zhijian of CITIC Pacific Limited topped the list with a fortune of 6.11 billion yuan, followed by Lu Guanqiu of Wanxiang Group (5.24 billion yuan), Huang Guangyu of Beijing's Pengrun Group (4.68 billion yuan), Chen Lihua from Fu Wah International (3.85 billion yuan) and Liu Yongxing from East Hope Group (3.5 billion yuan).
The average fortune for the top 400 is 760 million yuan. The top 100 totally hold 168 billion yuan, 55.4 percent of the total figure of the top 400 and 1.68 billion yuan for each person. Only seven persons among the 400 richest possess a fortune over 3 billion.
The top 400 are from 23 industries, with 41.1 percent coming from real estate and traditional manufacturing industries. — People's Daily Online, April 10, 2003
