China’s new richest man named his company with prophetic accuracy. Wang Chuanfu called the business BYD — or Build Your Dream.

Mr Wang used to joke that the BYD of his company also stood for “Bring Your Dollars”. Chinese consumers, as well as the US billionaire Warren Buffet, have been doing just that. Yesterday Mr Wang headed the new list of the 1,000 richest people in China.

A self-made man, raised by his brothers and sisters after their parents died young, Mr Wang founded his company making rechargeable batteries for mobile telephones in 1995. By 2000, his BYD had become the world’s largest supplier of mobile phone batteries and he listed in Hong Kong two years later.

Mr Wang’s decision in 2003 to branch out into car manufacturing stunned the market but ensured that this year he has leapt 102 places to top the Hurun rich list after his fortune increased more than five-fold to $5.1 billion.

The automobile tycoon — son of a rural carpenter — this year became the first carmaker to launch mass production of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Mr Wang’s BYD also sells the F3 car — now the most popular domestic car in China. The company has secured backing from Mr Buffett, whose MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. has a 9.9 per cent stake in the Hong Kong-listed company.

Mr Wang turned out his first plug-in electric car for the market last year. He has no small ambitions for BYD. The company has said that it plans to become China’s No 1 carmaker by 2015 and the world leader by 2025.

The world financial crisis appears to have had scant impact on China’s super-rich.

Rupert Hoogewerf, who compiles the annual list, said that China’s rich were getting richer, with the average wealth on the list estimated at $571 million, soaring almost one-third from last year. He said: “With the greatest wealth destruction in the West of the last 70 years, we've seen China buck the trend and the wealth seems to be still growing."

The rich list gained 180 new members — despite the entry criteria for the latest list rising by 50 per cent to $150 million. In 2004, the list could find only 100 individuals with $150 million, whereas this year those with that kind of wealth rose to 1,000. Seven tycoons moved into the Top 10 — the biggest shake-up since the Hurun report started publishing the rich list in 1999.

And that list may be very partial in a country where many of the wealthy covet their privacy, nervous that a public profile will arouse resentment and thus bring them to the attention of the Government or even a police investigation. The man who headed the rich list last year, Huang Guangyu, the electronics and property magnate, has been in police custody for nearly a year on suspicion of corruption. He slipped to 17th place this year.

Mr Hoogewerf said that the real number of billionaires could be much higher. “There are still a large number of billionaires off the radar screens, managing to build up substantial wealth away from the public spotlight from property, the stock market and investments."

Most of those on the list made their fortunes from property or the stock market. Mr Wang, a manufacturer, in the top slot is unusual. As is Zhang Yin, the woman who occupies second place and who headed the list in 2006. She made her fortune with her company Nine Dragons Paper, which recycles paper into cardboard boxes.

Ms Zhang was one of 102 women on the list — up from 88 last year and accounting for 10.2 per cent of the total. The report said: “Significantly, all are self-made, a remarkably high percentage compared with their Western counterparts. Chinese women now lead the world's richest self-made women".

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