SHANGHAI, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- A female entrepreneur
has topped a list of China's richest people, the first time a woman has headed
the list in the country.
Zhang Yin, 49-year-old founder and chairwoman of
Guangdong-based Nine Dragons Paper Industries Co., Ltd., has amassed a fortune
of 27 billion yuan (3.375 billion U.S. dollars).
"She is the wealthiest self-made woman in the world,"
said Rupert Hoogewerf who set up the list known as the Huran Report in 1999.
According to Hoogewerf, Zhang is richer than the U.S. television host Oprah
Winfrey and author of the Harry Potter series JK Rowling.
Zhang Yin was born to a soldier's family in northeast
China's Heilongjiang Province as the eldest sister of seven. She went to Hong
Kong in 1985 and started her career in waste paper trading with 30,000 yuan.
Zhang defied financial hardship, cheating business
partners and intimidation from local mafia to build up her wealth in the
subsequent five years before moving to the United States with her husband in
February 1990 to pursue her dream of becoming an "empress of waste paper".
In 1996 she set up the Nine Dragons Paper Industries
Co., Ltd. in Dongguan of Guangdong. Her product is now used by multinational
companies, such as Coca Cola, Nike, Sony, Haier and TCL.
Zhang deems luck as the most important factor in her
success, adding that her down-to-earth personality has helped her career.
Falling to second place is Huang Guangyu of China's
household electronics giant GOME Electrical Appliances with a fortune of 20
billion yuan (2.5 billion U.S. dollars) after occupying the top spot for the
last two years.
Huang started his career on a roadside stall in
Beijing selling radios and gadgets. GOME now has 560 branches in over 160 cities
on the Chinese mainland and 12 in Hong Kong and Macao.
Ranked in third place is Zhu Mengyi, 47-years-old and
CEO of the Hopson Development Holding Limited, with 16.5 billion yuan (2.06
billion U.S. dollars). After graduating from a middle school, he built up his
fortune from being a foreman in a township in Guangdong.
Of the 500 people on the list, 35 are female, seven
percent of the total. The new list suggests that women are showing increasing
talent in business, Hoogewerf said.
Six people in the top ten are involved in real estate
and four are from southeast China's Guangdong Province.
People are getting rich quickly, noted Hoogewerf, who
added that last year, the person ranked No. 400 had 500 million yuan (62.5
million U.S. dollars), while this year, the 400th person had800 million yuan
(100 million U.S. dollars). Enditem
