Billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong has for the first time moved up to the top 200 of the Forbes’ rich list as of July 31.

Billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong (Photo: Forbes)

According to Forbes’ website, he ranked 194^th 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 Viet Nam’s first billionaire.

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 239^th place to 204^th.

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 Viet Nam.

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

Viet Nam 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 Viet Nam 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.

(Source: VNA)