Beijing, Oct 8 With $16 billion in her kitty, a 26-year-old Chinese woman, daughter of a real estate tycoon, has become the richest person in Asia, Forbes Asia’s 2007 ranking of the communist nation’s wealthiest said on Monday.

Yang Huiyan, daughter of Country Garden Holdings Company Limited’s co-founder Yeung Kwok Keung, acquired his father’s shareholding in 2005. Country Garden’s single IPO in Hong Kong in April spawned five billionaires.

Last year’s No 1, Wong Kwong Yu, fell nine places to No 10 even though his wealth increased by 56% to $3.6 billion from $2.3 billion a year ago.

All the 40 people on the Forbes Asia’s 2007 China Rich List are billionaires with a combined net worth of $120 billion, up three times from last year’s $38 billion, a Forbes press release said.

Household incomes are rising rapidly, and a growing number of people are moving into cities from rural areas.

Those trends are creating great business opportunity for property developers in the country, Forbes senior editor and compiler of the China Rich List Russell Flannery said.

To compile this list, Forbes Asia looked at shareholdings in public Companies as well as private Companies. Publicly traded fortunes were calculated using recent share prices and exchange rates. For private fortunes, Forbes estimated what Companies and assets would be worth if public. Unlike the Forbes billionaires list, this ranking has been broadened to include some family fortunes, the release said.