From 31 Trillion to 14 Trillion in One Year... Why Asia's Richest Woman's Wealth Halved

2nd Place is Pan Hongwei, Chairman of Hengli Petrochemical

Yang Huiyan, Co-Chairman of Country Garden Holdings. Photo by Twitter Capture.

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyun-joo] Yang Huiyan (楊惠姸, 41), the co-chairwoman of Country Garden (碧桂園, Biguiyuan) and the richest woman in Asia, reportedly lost half of her fortune over the past year.

According to CNN and others on the 28th (local time), Yang's fortune was $24 billion (approximately 31.3 trillion KRW) last year but dropped to $11 billion (approximately 14.3 trillion KRW) this year. More than half of her wealth, $13 billion (17 trillion KRW), disappeared over several months.

The sharp decline in Yang's fortune is due to the drop in Country Garden's stock price amid the downturn in China's real estate market. Chinese authorities have taken a hard stance against excessive debt in the real estate sector, leading to large real estate companies that expanded their businesses through loans facing defaults or bankruptcy risks.

Additionally, there have been recent cases where buyers who paid pre-sale fees in advance have been unable to move into their apartments, leading many buyers to refuse mortgage repayments. In China, buyers start mortgage repayments immediately after pre-sale, but delays or stoppages have become frequent, severely impacting the entire real estate development industry.

However, Yang still firmly holds the top spot as Asia's richest woman. The second place is held by Pan Hongwei, chairman of Hengli Petrochemical (Hengli Seokyuhwahak). CNN pointed out that "as Yang's fortune decreased, the gap with second-place Pan Hongwei has significantly narrowed to about $100 million (approximately 130 billion KRW)."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.