Pham Nhat Vuong is the first Vietnamese to enter the list of the world’s 200 wealthiest people. He has an estimated worth of $7.5 billion. Vuong, who heads the Vingroup conglomerate, is 198th on the real time billionaires ranking updated by Forbes magazine on Saturday. His net worth has increased by $3.2 billion over last year when he topped Forbes’s list of four Vietnamese billionaires.
A 13 percent increase in the value of Vingroup’s shares in the first week after Vietnam’s stock market reopened following a 9-day Tet (Lunar New Year Festival) break has been a factor in boosting Vuong’s net worth and catapulting him into the top 200 list.
Price of Vingroup’s share (VIC) stood at VND112,000 ($4.82) at the end of the trading session last Friday.
Vingroup, one of Vietnam’s largest real estate conglomerates, has been expanding rapidly into retail, logistics, agriculture, education and healthcare sectors. Vuong was first mentioned as a billionaire on the Forbes list in 2013 with a net worth of $1.5 billion, ranking 974th richest in the world.
Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, the other Vietnamese billionaire and owner of budget carrier Vietjet, is 1,014th on the Forbes list of global billionaires with assets worth around $2.3 billion.
Topping the Forbes list was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who became world’s first centi-billionaire with a net worth of $133 billion, up $21 billion from 2018. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder, was in second place with a net worth of $97 billion.