Friend of 2point6billion, Jerry Stryker shares a comment on the rich Chinese.  Seems that all the little factoids churing out about the rich and how they got rich trigger some strange deep-down interest of ours hidden in the depths of our souls!  What’s yet more?  Let’s read on…

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Geoffrey York satisfies the urge to know more about millionaires and billionaires in China with this article in Saturday’s Globe and Mail (”Canada’s National Newspaper”), which includes such eye-catching tidbits as:

Over the past two years, the average wealth of China’s richest people has soared by 48 per cent a year;

The skyrocketing wealth of China’s tycoons is best illustrated by a former peasant and bricklayer named Yang Guoqiang, whose family fortune soared to an estimated
$10-billion after his company made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last month;

When the owners of a hotel development company found five years ago that they were to be listed at No. 94, they disclosed their true wealth, enough to put them in the top five, where they’ve remained ever since;

All of China’s richest are first-generation entrepreneurs; none of them inherited any wealth;

Most of the richest Chinese people are relatively young, often under the age of 45, and a growing number, 35 of the top 500 on the latest list, are women;

Half of the top 10 richest people are property developers;

A political connection is still extremely helpful on the road to riches. (and a bunch of ‘interesting’ facts on this one but you’ll have to explore elsewhere for these…);

York has been working for The Globe and Mail since 1981 in a variety of positions in Canada and abroad.  He was Moscow bureau chief for eight years before taking over as Beijing bureau chief in 2002.

The full article can be found at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070526.
wxchina26/BNStory/International/

Thanks for sharing these wacky facts with us Jerry!

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