[GLOBAL ECONOMIC TIMES]  Zhang Yiming (41), who founded ByteDance, the parent company of the globally successful short-form platform TikTok, has become China's richest person.

Zhang Yiming ranked first with a net worth of 350 billion yuan (approximately 67.7 trillion won) in the list of China's richest people (super rich) published this year by the Hurun Institute, a Chinese wealth research institute. Zhang Yiming was also recorded as China's first balinghou (born in the 1980s) and the richest self-made person.

As TikTok became popular around the world, his assets increased by 105 billion yuan compared to the previous year.

On the other hand, Zhong Shanshan, founder and chairman of Nongfushanquan, China's largest bottled water company, who had topped the list for three consecutive years, was pushed to second place. His assets were calculated to be 340 billion yuan, down 110 billion yuan from last year.

Third place went to Ma Huateng, founder of social media and gaming giant Tencent. His assets reached 315 billion yuan, up 35 billion yuan from last year.

The list of China's richest people, published every year by Hurun Research Institute, includes people with personal assets exceeding 5 billion yuan. The number of people included in this year's list was 1,094, a 12% decrease from the previous year. In addition, the combined assets of people included in the list decreased by 10% (2.4 trillion yuan) from the previous year to 21 trillion yuan.