Two Vietnamese in Forbes’ billionaires list

Two Vietnamese, Vingroup chairman Pham Nhat Vuong and Sovico Holdings chairwoman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, have featured in the Forbes’s 2017 world’s billionaires list.
Two Vietnamese in Forbes’ billionaires list ảnh 1Vingroup chairman Pham Nhat Vuong (left) and Sovico Holdings chairwoman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao are featured in the Forbes world’s billionairs. (File Photo)
Hanoi (VNA) - Two Vietnamese, Vingroup chairman PhamNhat Vuong and Sovico Holdings chairwoman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, have featuredin the Forbes’s 2017 world’s billionaires list.

With his total assets rising by 640 million USD in 2016 to touch 2.4billion USD, Vuong has moved up 144 grades to rank 867th on the list, which wasreleased on March 20. This is the fifth consecutive year that Vuong has made itto this Forbes list.

Vingroup, one of the largest groups in Vietnam, earns most of itsrevenue from property businesses, but now it is expanding rapidly into retail,agriculture, education, healthcare and logistics.

Thao, who took her budget carrier Vietjet public in February, hasfeatured on the list for the first time ever. She is also the first self-madewoman billionaire in Vietnam, according to Forbes. With total assets of 1.2billion USD, Thao ranks 1,678th on the list.

Thao launched Vietjet in 2011. The airline now has around 300flights a day. She also has investments in HD Bank and real estate, includingthree beach resorts.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates remained at the No 1 position for thefourth year in a row and the richest person in the world for 18 of the past 23years, with a fortune of 86 billion USD, up from 75 billion USD last year.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who ranks third, seems to have had the bestyear among everyone on the list, with his fortune jumping by 27.6 billion USDin 2016 to 72.8 billion USD.

There are 2,043 billionaires on the Forbes’ list this year, up 13 percentcompared to the number of billionaires last year. Their net worth totals arecord 7.67 trillion USD, an 18 percent rise from last year’s list.-VNA
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