Beijing overtakes New York as city with more billionaires
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According to the latest Forbes' annual rich list of 2021 released on Wednesday, Beijing has now become the new billionaire capital of the world for the first time.
While New York City has gained only seven new billionaires in the last year, the capital city of China has gained 33 new billionaires in 2020, bringing its total number of billionaires to 100. This has shifted the country's rank from the fourth position to the first, narrowly beating New York with 99 billionaires. However, the net worth of billionaires in New York ($560 billion) remains higher than that of Beijing ($484 billion).
Zhang Yiming, the founder of the video-sharing app TikTok and chief executive of its parent firm ByteDance with a net worth of $35.6 billion, is the richest person in Beijing and Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon with a net worth of $177 billion, is the world's richest person for the fourth year running.
Though the US has been home to the most number of billionaires for a very long time, with New York being the first city on the list for the last seven years, China has been catching up. The rise of China's technology firms and stock markets combined with the country's quick containment of Covid-19 has contributed to helping the city earn the first position.
According to Forbes, about 480 newcomers joined the list of billionaires last year, which roughly means one new billionaire every 17 hours.
The only Indian city to feature in the list is Mumbai, with its 48 dollar billionaires as it added ten billionaires last year. Mukesh Ambani, chair of conglomerate Reliance Industries, is the wealthiest person in Asia.
Forbes list of top 10 cities with most billionaires:
- Beijing
- New York City
- Hong Kong
- Moscow
- Shenzhen
- Shanghai
- London
- Mumbai
- San Francisco
- Hangzhou