Nation has record number of billionaires

"Although China's economic growth rate has been slowing down recently, the ongoing urbanization process has brought good news to such sectors as consumer products and services, pharmaceutical and healthcare, entertainment and mobile Internet. These are the major drivers of the emerging Chinese wealth," said Zhou Jiangong, editor-in-chief of Forbes China.

Quite a number of the wealthy people on the list are in the technology industry.

Pony Ma, co-founder and chairman of Tencent Holdings Ltd, who ranked fifth on this year's list, saw his personal wealth increase to 62.2 billion yuan from 39 billion last year.

Chinese e-commerce pioneer Jack Ma - founder and former chairman of China's largest e-commerce platform Alibaba Group Holding Ltd - saw his personal wealth increase to 43.3 billion yuan and ranks eighth on the list.

"It seems that the rapid accumulation of Chinese rich people's wealth is not in line with the economic slowdown. But the list has reflected the changes taking place in the real economy. We can see from the list that industries, including Internet, automotive, entertainment and real estate, are still expanding by leaps and bounds," said Russell Flannery, Shanghai bureau chief at Forbes China.

Among the 87 millionaires who made it into the list for the first time this year, Li Hejun, chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Hanergy Holding Group, jumped to fourth place, with a personal wealth of 66.5 billion yuan. Hanergy is one of the largest solar cell equipment manufacturers in the world.