(ECNS) -- A new Hurun Philanthropy List released on Thursday shows that although the threshold for entering the Hurun Rich List has doubled in the past 10 years, the threshold for charity has remained unchanged, indicating the lagging development of China's charity work.
In 2007, a minimum net worth of 7.5 billion yuan (about $11 billion) was required to be included in China's Top 100 richest people, and the threshold rose to 22 billion yuan in 2016, a rise of nearly double. The threshold for entering the Philanthropy List is 15 million yuan in 2017, the same as that in 2007.
Xu Guanju, the founder of chemicals and logistics provider Transfar Group, and his family topped the Hurun Philanthropy List with a donation of 3 billion yuan. He was followed by Tencent co-founder Chen Yidan with a donation of 2.25 billion yuan to set up the world's largest education award, the "Yidan Award," in Hong Kong and Xu Jiayin of Evergrande Real Estate with 1.24 billion yuan.
Xu's family, worth 23 billion yuan according to the Hurun Report, announced the donation to Transfar Charity Foundation to mark the 30th anniversary of the group's founding last year, pledging to support poverty alleviation, medicine, health and the environment.
The list ranks annually the Top 100 most generous individuals from the Chinese mainland based on their donations in the past year. The 100 philanthropists donated a total of nearly 16 billion yuan, down 45 percent year on year due to Pony Ma's donation driving up the overall level last year.
Real estate, investment and IT are still the top three industries that most philanthropists are doing, making up 60 percent of the list, which had 73 new philanthropists, four more than last year. At 30, Papi Jiang, one of China's most popular internet stars, became the youngest donor on the list, while the average age was 55 years old.
This year the minimum donation amount was 15 million yuan, up from 12.55 million yuan the previous year.
Rupert Hoogewerf, the Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher, said, "Generally speaking, entrepreneurs in China are still busy making their money. The Number 100 on the Hurun Rich List has shot up seven times, but the Number 100 of the Hurun Philanthropy List has stayed the same, at $2 million."
The report also showed that more rich people from private business had made donations abroad. Six entrepreneurs donated 10 million yuan or more overseas. Chen Tianqiao, the mainland's online game pioneer who founded Shanda Games, and his wife Luo Qianqian, donated 800 million yuan to the California Institute of Technology for brain research. Jing Xiandong of the Ant Financial Services Group announced a $5 million donation to strengthen the Carlson School's relationship with China, the largest gift from China in the University of Minnesota's history.
Huang Rulun, who has been on the Hurun Philanthropy List for 14 consecutive years, donated 200 million yuan to build a drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation center in the Philippines.
