MCDONELL: According to the Hurun report’s research, the typical Chinese billionaire is a 51 year old man. His child is just out of university. He lives in Beijing.

The typical millionaire is only 41 years old, lives in Shanghai, or nearby provinces, and is planning to send his 10 year old child to university in Australia, Canada, Britain or the United States.
“These are the people who are going to rule the world aren’t they?”

RUPERT HOOGEWERF: “Well they’re very young still and they’re growing very fast and so you look at the Bill Gates of this world who are well into their 60s and the Buffets who are well into their 80s even and these Chinese entrepreneurs are still in their 40s, possibly their 50s, well they’ve got another 30 years to go. Where are they going to end up?”

MCDONELL: And according to this rich list the top way for these people to make money is real estate. This hotel has just been built in 14 days – yes you heard it right. Work went on around the clock and the seemingly unthinkable pace of construction was achieved by using pre-made steel frames which were placed in like massive blocks. So now, in the middle of nowhere in Central China’s Hunan Province, they have their own tower.

“If I was standing in this exact location just two weeks ago I’d be on the ground surrounded by vegetable gardens. Now I’m on top of a 30 storey hotel and I’ve got to say it’s pretty surreal”. The man behind this project is the rather eccentric and very successful businessman Zhang Yue. With workers still putting the finishing touches on his high speed hotel, he’s already giving potential business partners a tour of the site.

ZHANG YUE: “The process is like manufacturing vehicles. For a car, from making the components to assembling it, it will take around two months – but it will only take one day to put it together”.

MCDONELL: Zhang Yue is marketing this as a cheap and he says eco friendly alternative to traditional building methods.

ZHANG YUE: “When we see a construction site it’s so dirty – but on our site it’s clean. There’s no dust, no waste water, no flames, no welding, no smoke”.