Forbes' Inaugural Taiwan's Top 40 Richest List

I stumbled on this yesterday, slightly outside the purview of a tech blog, but still relates to Taiwan and Taiwan business. The net worth of the Top 40 is impressive. According to Forbes.

For decades after the end of World War II, Taiwan's relationship with China was strained because of politics. Today, changes on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are leading to hopes for better relations between the two, a trend that is already boosting wealth in Taiwan.

That is the main theme from our inaugural list of Taiwan's 40 richest. Taiwan's main stock index and property prices have gained this year on hopes that the island, under newly elected President Ma Ying-jeou, will seek closer ties with the mainland. To that end, Taiwan is prepared to open itself to goods and money from the mainland in ways that it hasn't in more than a half a century.

"There is a lot of room to increase business between both sides," says Stephen Liao, vice president and head of research at Grand Securities. Among the industries that would particularly benefit from closer ties are retail, tourism and property, he says.

The combined net worth of the island's 40 richest is $77 billion, more than their counterparts in South Korea or any Southeast Asian nation. They lag Hong Kong's top 40 by $102 billion and China's by $43 billion, but considering Taiwan's political isolation and relative size, the group holds its own.

Yeah, maybe these guys can get richer when more money flows into Taiwan from the Mainland but at what cost? According to the article property prices are already on the rise. Average property prices around my neighborhood start at around USD500,000 and I have seen two apartments recently for more than USD1,000,000. We even saw one for USD3,000,000. Average Taiwanese people earn a little over USD1,000 per month. They cannot afford these apartments and that is why the companies can remain competitive. A very cheap highly-educated work force. (Most of the people in my company have Master's degrees from overseas).

While I have a lot of respect for Taiwan's entrepreneurship (hence a blog focusing on Taiwan's businesses), I don't think opening more links with China will improve the lives and wealth of the average Taiwanese person, and their relative financial position may even deteriorate. I will give credit to Ma though, I saw an article (cannot find the link) where he said he wanted to increase the average Taiwanese salary to NTD900,000 (USD30,000) per year. Even so, they will still not be able to afford apartments and houses in Taipei. Its just too expensive.

Anyway, for what its worth, Taiwan's richest list is below with links to their short Forbe's biographies:

1. Tsai Hong-tu & family
2. Y.C. Wang
3. Terry Gou
4. Tsai Wan-tsai
5. Cher Wang & Wen Chi Chen
6. Jeffrey Koo Sr.
7. Lin Rong San
8. Wei Ing-Chou & family
9. Tsai Eng Meng
10. Lin Yu-Lin
11. Eugene Wu & family
12. Barry Lam
13. Chao Teng-Hsiung
14. Douglas Hsu
15. Shi Wen Long
16. Luo Jye & family
17. Chang Yung-fa
18. Tsai Ming-Kai
19. Leslie Koo
20. Jason Chang
21. Lin Ming-cheng
22. Tsai Chi Jui & family
23. Long-Shing Liao
24. Suhon Lin
25. Tseng Shin-yi
26. Rudy Ma & family
27. Kenneth Yen & family
28. Paul Liao & family
29. Chen Ching-Chih & family
30. Samuel Yin
31. Wu Chung-Yi
32. Lin Yu-chia & family
33. Hou Bo-ming & family
34. Chen Yung-tai
35. Show Chung Ho
36. Wu Ping-Chih & family
37. Allen Horng & family
38. Bruce Cheng
39. Steven Pan & family
40. Ting Piao Chiao & family

(Forbes' Article: Taiwan's 40 Richest)