Wealth of China’s richest lawmakers rises by a third

BEIJING: The richest members of China´s parliament and its advisory body have grown even richer, a body that tracks wealth in China said on Friday.

Led by National People´s Congress (NPC) delegate Ma Huateng, the chairman of tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, with a net worth of 295 billion yuan ($46 billion), the top 100 representatives had a total net worth of 3.91 trillion yuan, the Shanghai-based Hurun Report said.

Their total wealth rose by one-third over the 12 months to Jan. 31, according to Reuters´ calculations based on Hurun´s data. While Chinese President Xi Jinping has led a crackdown on corruption and made the fight against poverty a priority, representatives of the NPC and the Chinese People´s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to the government, include some of the communist-ruled country´s wealthiest businessmen.

The NPC could not be reached for comment about its ultra-wealthy delegates, and a CPPCC press representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hurun identified 153 delegates as each being worth 2 billion yuan or more, the lowest number in five years. But although the total numbers of the super-rich in the two government bodies was down, their combined wealth, at 4.12 trillion yuan, was nearly 18 percent higher than the total wealth of rich lawmakers last year.