Although some notice it more than others, the crisis is taking its toll on everyone. This can be witnessed by the great Chinese fortunes, which have seen the greatest decline in their wealth in more than two decades due to the war in Ukraine, the covid-zero measures promoted by Beijing and the fall in the stock markets of Hong Kong and the rest of mainland China.
According to the list published this week by the research firm Hurun, which ranks the richest people in China with a minimum net worth of 5 billion yuan (about 692 million dollars), only 1,305 people obtained the necessary credentials this year. to belong to such a select club, 11% less than in the previous year.
Among them, the number of people with 10 billion or more has fallen by about a third to 56, while the number of billionaires (more than 1 billion dollars) is 946. “This year has seen the biggest drop in China's Hurun Rich List in the last 24 years," summarized Rupert Hoogewerf, president of the Hurun Report, during the presentation of the data this week.
For the second consecutive year, number one in the ranking went to Zhong Shanshan, for whom the good work of his Nongfu Spring water bottling company and the Beijing Biological Pharmacy vaccine developer have reported a 17% increase in revenue to reach a total of 65,000 million dollars.
Apart from technology, one of the most affected sectors is the real estate industry, which is facing a severe crisis after the Government imposed restrictions on indebtedness in 2020.
Yang Huiyan, the businesswoman behind Country Garden Holdings, posted the biggest drop on the list in 2022 (-$15.7 billion). Similar problems are going through Xu Jiayin, president of the real estate company Evergrande, which sank to 172nd place due to the burdens that his firm, the most indebted in the world (300,000 million dollars), is going through.
The last congress of the Communist Party held in October did not help calm their fears. In his inaugural address, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to regulate the accumulation of wealth and "excessive income" in favor of "common prosperity." Nor are they too comforted by the new faces of the Chinese leadership, from which the most liberal or reformist profiles have disappeared to make way for faithful allies of Xi, in favor of a more interventionist economic policy by the State. For the year as a whole, the International Monetary Fund lowered Chinese growth forecasts to 3.2%, far from the initial official target of 5.5%.
This situation, added to other factors such as the maintenance of restrictions due to the covid zero policy or a falling real estate market, has caused some anxiety on the part of millionaires and the upper classes, who would be advising on the different ways to put land in between for their fortunes and relatives.
“Colleagues in the profession have told me that their firms have seen inquiries increase several times since May, and that they continue to grow every day,” Danny Cai, director of an immigration and study abroad consultancy in Zhejiang province, told the Associated Press. Hong Kong newspaper SCMP. “Customers are like frogs in warm water that suddenly feels like it's boiling. We are realizing that China is at a crossroads and that new economic policies may create huge uncertainties and risks to its wealth,” he added.
