According to Forbes’ website, he ranked 194th on the list, with a net worth of 8.25 billion USD.

This is the highest place ever for Vuong, owner of multi-business conglomerate Vingroup and Vietnam’s first billionaire.

Billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong.

Earlier on July 29, his assets were 8.1 billion USD, up 1.5 billion USD compared to Forbes’ statistics in March, thus the billionaire jumped up from 239th place to 204th.

The growth of Vingroup’s shares, notably of Vinhomes JSC (VHM) and Vincom Retail (VRE), is attributable to the surge of Vuong’s assets.

Vuong studied in Russia and started a popular instant noodle business in Ukraine in the 1990s before moving back to Vietnam.

Vuong chairs Vingroup, one of Vietnam’s largest conglomerates with interests in real estate, retail and health care among others.

Vietnam has three other billionaires in the Forbes list. They were Tran Ba Duong, chairman of Thaco – the biggest car company of the country, with a net worth of 1.7 billion USD; Ho Hung Anh, chairman of Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) with 1.6 billion USD; and Nguyen Dang Quang, chairman of consumer goods and natural resources firm Masan Group with 1.3 billion USD.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of online retail site Amazon, topped the Forbes list with a 155.2 billion USD fortune.

Bezos was followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates who had 104.5 billion USD and Bernard Arnault – CEO of LVMH, the world's largest luxury-goods company – with 100.62 billion USD.

Vietnam's billionaires in numbers

Two more Vietnamese billionaires have joined Forbes' billionaire club, bringing the total to four.

Billionaire Alibaba boss Jack Ma talks shop at Vietnam E-Payment Forum

'Like it or not, the world is moving to a non-cash payment era.'

Orange billionaire in Tan Quang commune, Luc Ngan district

(BGO) – A garden of 1,100 orange trees brings in billions of VND to Tran Duy Ha’s family in Truong Sinh village every year. This is an outstanding business household in Tan Quang commune, Luc Ngan district, Bac Giang province.

Vietnam launches first White Book on businesses

The first ever White Book on Vietnamese businesses will be published soon and it will be an annual issue thereafter.

547 new businesses established in first six months

(BGO) – Bac Giang province has granted the business registration certificate to 547 enterprises and 37 branches and representative offices in the first six month of this year, up 6.6 percent comparing to the same period last year with total registered capital of over 4.6 trillion VND (197.2 million USD) increasing 14.8 percent against previous figure.  

Source: VNA