A woman with a personal fortune worth some $3.4 billion has topped a list of China's richest people for the first time.
Cheung Yan (49), founder and chairwoman of top Chinese paper packager Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) Ltd. - saw her fortune balloon nine-fold to US$3.4 billion boosted by her firm's March initial public offering in Hong Kong.
The entrepreneur, who controlled 72 per cent of Nine Dragons as of August 31st, has lapped up a 165 per cent rally in the company's stock, according to an annual survey compiled by Rupert Hoogewerf, who pioneered a list for Forbes magazine.
Ms Cheung's stellar ascent is rare in a Communist country whose largest corporations are state-owned or run by well-connected male executives, and where "capitalism" is still a bad word in some circles.
"China's women are becoming more visible in business," said Hoogewerf, who has published the list since 1999.
"Traditionally women have always been on the inside and men have been on the outside. It hasn't been until the economic reforms that women have actually started to make inroads into the public arena."
Ms Cheung began building her fortune in 1985, when she set up a waste-paper trading business in Hong Kong. She is now the richest self-made woman in the world, with a larger fortune than that of US television host Oprah Winfrey, or JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, Mr Hoogewerf said.
Her personal wealth leapt from $375 million last year, when she was logged as number 36 in the survey, surpassing appliances king Huang's $2.5 billion, according to the report.
The 500 richest Chinese in the Hurun report are now worth an average of US$276 million, a 48 per cent rise over the previous year, controlling a total US$138 billion in assets.