Jim wrote:
are "billionaires" measured in terms of yuan or dollars? If it is the latter, if the yuan goes up (and the US$ falls), the number of PRC billionaires would fall. That is, the number of billionaires may be a temporary fluke.
In dollars. From the Hurun Report, to which the Times article refers: "Dramatically led by 106 US dollar billionaires, the ninth anniversary edition of the Hurun Rich List has more US dollar billionaires than any country outside the US. 26-year old Yang Huiyan catapulted to the top spot with a personal fortune of US$17.5 billion, followed by Zhang Yin, the richest self-made woman in the world, on US$10 billion." (http://www.hurun.net/indexen.aspx) Michael wrote:
Aren't they counting wealth by stock market holdings at the time of an inflated stock market?
Sure. But even discounting for that, it's still indicative of the marked trend towards the rapid expansion of the private sector and growing concentration of personal wealth in China.
