Wealthiest Chinese record surge in fortune

Jack Ma and his family took the crown of richest Chinese individuals with a total fortune of 275 billion yuan ($38.56 billion) followed by Ma Huateng, 260 billion yuan, and Xu Jiayin, 210 billion yuan, according to the 2019 LEXUS·Hurun China Rich List issued by Hurun Research Institute on Thursday.

However, the number of people on the list continued to shrink for two consecutive years, with nearly 40 percent entrepreneurs dropping out of the list since last year. "The biggest drop since records began 21 years ago," Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report, said.

On the other hand, 19 people on this year's list saw their fortune exceed 100 billion yuan, the biggest jump.

The threshold for the top 50 richest Chinese people rose by 10 to 51 billion yuan. The average fortune of the richest individuals increased to 9.8 billion yuan, while the richest Chinese 15 years ago had only 10 billion yuan.