BEIJING - When Robin Li decided to set up his own Internet company in 2000, he was said to be "chasing a dream to change people's lives" through technology. Few would have dreamed then that his Chinese search engine Baidu would become the largest of its kind a decade later.

That success has propelled Li, 42, to the top of Forbes magazine's billionaires list on the Chinese mainland this year, with a personal wealth of $9.4 billion that also ranks him 95th globally.

Li heads a list of rich Chinese whose numbers are burgeoning on the back of the country's growing affluence, with many from the private sector drawing their wealth from new and diverse sectors of the economy including the Internet and education rather than just traditional fields such as real estate and manufacturing.

These helped the number of billionaires from the mainland that made it to Forbes' annual list nearly double to 115 this year.

Sun Lijian, vice-dean of the school of economics at Fudan University in Shanghai, said that China's strong growth, compared with Europe, the United States and other countries that were more badly hit by the financial crisis, has helped its number of billionaires increase this year.

Luo Laijun, an expert in international economics at Beijing-based Renmin University of China and a member of the Academy of International Business, said China's economy has offered a "unique" combination to fuel the increasing number of people making it to the rankings.

"The Chinese economy faced many challenges in 2010 following the financial crisis, but the macro economy has started to improve. China saw economic growth of 10 percent and a CPI (consumer price index) growth of 3.3 percent. So far, that is a combination no other country has been able to match. Against this backdrop, it is not hard to understand why there has been a surge in the number of rich Chinese people," Luo said.

"China's stronger national competitiveness in handling the economic crisis has made the world see it in a new light. A more open investment environment has also contributed to greater attention on China.

"As for China itself, its national strategy highlighting innovation and internationalization has promoted the development of mainland enterprises and directly contributed to the emerging group of rich people."

China's economy is now inclining toward industries with intensive technological investment and the technology industry is "best at producing new billionaires".

Fudan University's Sun saidChina's Internet industry has benefited from the country's enormous number of netizens.

"The swift development of IT infrastructure and the widespread use of computers have led to the large supply of Internet services," Sun said.

Sun and Luo also point out that the departure of US-based Internet search giant Google from the Chinese market helped the rapid growth of Baidu significantly.

"In future, the technology sector will take an increasingly important position in China," Luo said.

"Newly rich people from the bio-pharmaceutical sector are also high up on the list and that is very eye-catching. It shows how the new and high-tech sectors hold great potential for development."

Underlying these changes is a major shift in the demographics of Chinese business.

Of the top 10 people from the mainland on Forbes' latest list, five are aged under 50. Two of these come from the IT sector, while one is involved in pharmaceuticals.

Zong Qinghou, 65, the chairman of multibillion-dollar beverages company Wahaha Group, fell from the top spot to third place. His $5.9 billion fortune also put him at 169th place in the world.

"Rich Chinese people are younger and more globalized, with higher education backgrounds and rich life experiences," Luo said.

"The industries they work in are gradually turning from the traditional, monopolized ones to new industries that advocate innovation. These are more rich people from the grassroots while in the past, those on the list were mostly from rich families themselves."

Baidu's Li was born in Yangquan, Shanxi province. He was the fourth child in a family of five children and designed real-time information systems for many Wall Street companies after discontinuing his graduate studies in the United States. For Baidu's year-end party, Li's name was clad in neon lights as he danced on stage with his clumsy moves projected on a large screen before screaming employees.

Jack Ma, another Chinese IT entrepreneur who heads business-to-business website Alibaba, is a former English teacher who had taken English-speaking tourists on visits to the famous West Lake in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province. Ma, 46, is worth $1.6 billion and ranked 48th in the Chinese mainland on Forbes' list.

Russell Flannery, senior editor at Forbes and involved in compiling its list for the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, said it is a "remarkable achievement" that China's economy can grow so fast and have so many people building their businesses and finding their way onto the list.

Still, Chinese mainland billionaires have some way to go before catching up with the world's richest. Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim topped Forbes' global list with his $74 billion fortune centered on the telecom sector. Christy Walton and family, the people behind US-based retail giant Walmart, stood at 10th position globally by being worth $26.5 billion. In Forbes' 2011 list, the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China contributed 108 of the 214 new billionaires. These countries are home to one in four of those listed, up from one in five a decade ago.

Six billionaires in Forbes' top 10 Chinese mainland list this year were also included in the top 10 of last year's Hurun rich list, an annual ranking of China's wealthiest people. Last year's Hurun rich list included 189 US dollar billionaires in China. This year's Hurun list will be published in October.

Rupert Hoogewerf, the founder and compiler of the Hurun Report, which also includes philanthropy and art rankings, said the actual number of billionaires in China is more than double the number it had listed.

But in a report on China's wealth market last year, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said that while the country is the largest wealth market in the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, it is by other measures not a rich country yet. China accounts for only 5 percent of global wealth, compared to 31.5 percent for the US and 13.4 percent for Japan.

BCG puts the number of Chinese mainland millionaire households (in terms of US dollars) at 670,000 households for 2009, compared with 4.72 million households for the US and 1.23 million households for Japan. The number of Chinese millionaires already rose by 31 percent in 2009 and China ranks third in their number, behind the US and Japan, but its penetration rate - the number of millionaires in the total population - remained very low compared to the other two countries.

Still, BCG reported that the Chinese market has substantial room to grow with the sheer volume of wealth presenting attractive opportunities.

Frankie Leung, partner and managing director of BCG who is also one of the authors of the report, said more billionaires will be coming from a wide range of industries.

"In addition to the traditional sectors, new energy, high-tech, pharmaceuticals and consumer products will create a new group of wealthy entrepreneurs," Leung said.

"Given the fast-growing middle class and many Chinese households actively trading up their purchase, we see that a number of brands targeting mid- to high-end segments can become very successful, and their owners will likelymake it to the rich list."

Hoogewerf also said a major trend seen in China's growing wealth is the increasing importance of its domestic market.

"The perception of many Europeans is that the wealth in China is created by the international market," Hoogewerf said.

"But as we have seen from the Hurun rich list, much of that wealth has been created by the domestic market."

Luo similarly points to the potential of China's small- and medium-sized enterprises and domestic demand for future wealth.

"More than 30 percent of the 54 people from the mainland who made it to the list for the first time in 2010 and 2011 were also mainly from the domestic small- and medium-sized enterprises market. It shows how the market will not totally favor large-scale, globalized companies, but also give SMEs their share. It is a reflection of a better environment for competition."

But Yao Zhizhong, head and senior fellow of the department of international investment at the institute of world economics and politics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said there is still some way to go before China can effectively shift to its domestic market.

"Although China understands the need to shift toward domestic consumption, it is still in the process of full industrialization. Normally, we say an active service industry will lead to growing consumption. But China's service industry is still quite weak," Yao said.

"Exports might decrease but China's economy still needs a long time to move the country's economic reliance away from exports and investments."

At least 20 of the new billionaires from China ranked by Forbes also boosted their wealth after initial public offerings (IPOs). China experienced a record number of IPOs last year, with 476 Chinese companies raising $105 billion of funds from both domestic and overseas markets, according to Chinese investment research group Zero2IPO.

"The development of the second board - ChiNext - also gives more opportunities for entrepreneurs to list their companies and monetize their business success," BCG's Leung said.

While analysts were careful to stress that the traditional drivers of wealth such as property and manufacturing will continue to play major roles in the Chinese economy, these will have to accommodate new growth areas fueled by innovation.

"We cannot deny that, under China's current market economy system which still has room for improvement, traditional industries will keep an important position in wealth accumulation for the long term," Luo Laijun said.

"But high-tech industries will impact all of these. The rich will be forced to use the fortunes that they acquired through more traditional means to invest and increase in value by changing their mindsets.

"The real estate sector has had a huge role in wealth accumulation. But its effect is highly related to policy and the economic situation, and it is not a rational way to make money," Luo said.

"There is also the relatively low profit rate of traditional industries. That, in the long term, will affect the material basis for the country's economic development. The Chinese economy will be healthier and more confident if several rich people come from the country's production sectors."

The latest spotlight on the growing number of super rich in China has also renewed interest in their role beyond business.

Taking the cue from Western billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who have donated chunks of their fortune to charity and encouraged many others to do so, members of China's wealthy class are adding to their presence in philanthropy.

Yang Tuan, a leading researcher on philanthropic studies at the CASS in Beijing, said the country's "philanthropy boom" seems to be catching up with the fast-growing group of China's super rich. Donations from Chinese billionaires and millionaires may amount to 70 billion yuan ($10.7 billion) in 2010, an increase of 40 billion yuan from 2009, she said.

China's top 100 philanthropists have given away at least 22.9 billion yuan to charity since 2005. The donors gave away an average of 229 million yuan each over the last five years from 2010, or 6 percent of their wealth, up from 4 percent the previous year, according to last year's Hurun Philanthropy List. The list tracks the most generous Chinese individuals measured by the value of their donations over five years.

Large donations by Chinese donors have also been rising, with three philanthropists giving away more than 100 million yuan in 2009.

Yu Pengnian, an 88-year-old Chinese real estate tycoon who was also listed among the 25 leading philanthropists in the world last year by Barron's magazine, became one of China's top philanthropists when he donated $470 million in cash and property to a foundation that aids health, education and disaster relief.

Xiang Bing, founding dean of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, said business involvement in charity and public welfare is attracting more attention in society and becoming an essential embodiment of social responsibility.

"The field of philanthropy is booming, not only because the number of wealthy Chinese is growing, but also because these people are more willing to take active roles in charity," Yang said.

Matt Hodges contributed to this story.

China Daily