(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-09 08:58

A 26-year-old woman worth $16.2 billion is the Chinese mainland's richest person, topping a list of tycoons whose wealth has soared amid a boom in stock and property prices, the business magazine Forbes said yesterday.

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The fortune of Yang Huiyan - also Asia's richest woman - is based on shares in Country Garden Holdings Ltd, a real estate developer founded by her father, Forbes said. It said the company's Hong Kong stock market debut this year made billionaires of Yang and four other people.

In second place was another developer, Hui Wing Mau, with a net worth of $7.3 billion. No 3 was Guo Guangchang, chairman of a manufacturing, retailing and real estate conglomerate, Fosun Group, with a fortune of $4.85 billion.

Their rise reflects a sharp rise in Chinese real estate prices over the past year.

Yang also represents an unusual case of second-generation wealth in China, most of whose richest people are self-made entrepreneurs still in their 30s and 40s.

Her net worth was more than seven times that of last year's richest mainland person, appliance retailer Gome's Huang Guangyu, who was worth $2.3 billion. Huang, also known as Wong Kwong-yu, dropped to No 10 on this year's list, even though his net worth rose by more than 50 percent to $3.6 billion.

Family photo of Yang Huiyan [163.com]

Forbes said it compiled its list by looking at shareholdings in public companies and estimating what holdings in private entities would be worth if public.

The list excludes Hong Kong, home to some the region's richest business people, such as tycoon Li Ka-shing.

The China list's rankings change sharply from year to year, reflecting the rapid evolution of the booming economy, which expanded by 11.9 percent in the third quarter.

This year, there were 20 new names among the list's top 40 richest people, Forbes said.

Yang, who graduated from Ohio State University, was one of 12 real estate developers among the top 40, Forbes said.

All 40 were billionaires, up from only 15 last year, the magazine said. The combined net worth of the top 40 also rose sharply, from $38 billion in 2006 to $120 billion this year.

Country Garden chairman Yang Guoqiang celebrates during his company's debut at the Hong Kong Exchanges in Hong Kong on Friday, April 20, 2007.[Reuters]

Yang's father, Yeung Kwok-keung, also known as Yang Guoqiang, grew up in poverty in Guangdong Province and worked as a bricklayer before becoming a developer in the early 1990s.

In 2005, the press-shy Yeung transferred his shares to his daughter, who sits on Country Garden's board as an executive director and works in its logistics activities, according to Forbes.

Forbes said earlier that Country Garden's April IPO was likely to make Yang the world's second-youngest billionaire, behind Germany's Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis.

Last year's richest woman, Zhang Yin, founder of Nine Dragons Paper Co, fell from No 5 to No 11 on this year's list, though her net worth grew by 125 percent to $3.4 billion.