The financial turmoil gripping the world has had little effect on wealth in China, where an ongoing economic boom keeps creating new US dollar billionaires, Forbes magazine said Thursday.
Releasing its annual list of China's richest people, Forbes said the world's second largest economy had a total of 146 billionaires this year -- up 14 percent from 2010, and second only to the United States that has 413.
Like a similar list released Wednesday by the China-based Hurun report -- which publishes luxury magazines and runs a research institute -- Forbes crowned machinery tycoon Liang Wengen the nation's richest man.
"Even though the stock market is going down, the wealth of the most successful people in China is going up," Russell Flannery, Forbes senior editor and Shanghai bureau chief, told reporters.
He pointed to a domestic building spree, higher demand for consumer goods and an economic boom as driving the increase in wealth in China, which posted growth of 9.6 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2011.
Rich list shows China wealth unhurt by global turmoil
