Despite COVID-19, 259 people became billionaires in China last year: Report
China now has 1,058 billionaires amongst its population representing over 32 percent of billionaires around the world.
Data issued by TradingPlatforms.com on Wednesday indicated that China achieved a milestone of becoming the first country to account for more than 1,000 billionaires amongst its population in 2000.
The Asian country attained the feat of having one-third of the world billionaires population last year, despite the global economic hardship occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, after adding 250 more from the previous year, exceeding that of the United States.
Despite the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on many industries, 2020 saw the biggest wealth increase of the last decade, with an average of eight billionaires being added to the billionaire list every week for the whole year.
The data further revealed that China added more billionaires to the list than the rest of the world combined in 2020.
China added 259 billionaires in 2020, making it the first country in the world to have 1,000 ‘known’ USD billionaires with a total of 1,058, over 32 percent of the world’s total billionaire population.
“This gives China more billionaires than the combined total of the next three countries on the list, including the U.S. (696), India (40) and Germany (19).
In the last five years alone, China added 490 billionaires to the list while the U.S. added 160, the report noted.
It also revealed that for China, 2020 marked the first time, perhaps in hundreds of years, that Asia had more billionaires than the rest of the world combined, accounting for over 51 percent of the entire planet’s known billionaires.
The world’s billionaires now have $14 trillion of wealth between them, more than China’s gross domestic product last year.
In addition, tech billionaires such as Elon Musk ($197 billion) saw an incredible increase in their wealth in 2020, even propelling the “enigmatic billionaire” to become the richest person in the world, a title that he alternates with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($189 billion).
Furthermore, blockchain billionaires in 2020 recorded a rapid increase with an additional 11 billionaires, totalling 17 billionaires.
“In total, blockchain wealth amounted to $77 billion in 2020, led by Brian Armstrong of Coinbase with $11.5 billion,” the report added.
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