Second is Sigapore
With an estimated net-worth of $23 billion, restaurateur Zhang Yong is the richest person living in Singapore; the 93-year-old Goh Cheng Liang, the founder of one the world’s largest paint manufacture, is a close second with his $21.7 billion fortune.
In third place with assets of about $15 billion (to some people’s surprise) is Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook, who in 2011 left the U.S. with 53 million shares of the company and became a permanent resident of the island nation. Saverin did not choose it just for its urban attractions or natural gateways: Singapore is an affluent fiscal haven where capital gains and dividends are tax-free
How did Singapore, on the other hand, become so prosperous? One-half of the population was illiterate when the city-state gained independence in 1965.
With essentially no natural resources, Singapore has worked its way up the economic ladder through hard work and sound policies to become one of the world’s most business-friendly cities.
Singapore is currently a booming trading, manufacturing, and financial center (most importantly, 98 percent of the adult population is now literate). That is not to suggest it has been immune to the consequences of the global downturn: the GDP contracted by 5.4 percent in 2020, plunging the country into recession for the first time in more than a decade.