While he claimed lives and destroyed economies ... Corona adds 10 trillion dollars to the balance of the world's richest people

Damascus-Sana

The new Corona virus, which did not exclude any person, race, or continent and did not neutralize its painful blow to the economies, whether for a superpower or developing country, was biased only towards the world's rich, as it huge their wealth and the revenues of their coffers.

When Corona was agonizing the global economy and plunging it into a coma that resulted in a recession that was paid for by thousands of small and medium enterprises and companies that declared their bankruptcy and brought millions of workers and employees into the furnace of unemployment and poverty, the opposite bank was increasing the wealth of the world's rich in banks, creating a state of inequality and deepening social disparities In the world, according to the title of the British agency "Oxfam" its annual report, in which it indicated that the wealth of the rich around the world has doubled more than 60 percent of the wealth of the people of the earth during the year 2020, according to Agence France-Presse.

What Oxfam went to was confirmed by the "Ubis" organization and the "PwC" Group for Professional Services in a report, stating that "billionaires' wealth has reached record levels in light of the Corona pandemic due to the rise in stock prices on the stock exchange and the gains made from the technology and industry sectors in addition to the sector. Healthcare.

The wealth of the world's rich increased by about 10.2 trillion dollars, surpassing the previous world record of 9'8 billion dollars in a year, as technology, health care and industry sectors topped, according to the report, with gains ranging between 36 and 40 percent.

The billionaires ’fortunes in the technology sector were estimated at $ 8.8 trillion, and the industry sector was 42.5 percent, while the health sector’s gains jumped to $ 658.8 billion, according to Reuters.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report, the wealth of the twenty richest people in the world increased by 24 percent. The biggest beneficiary of them was the founder of the "Amazon" e-commerce company, Jeff Bezos, who made him the Corona virus on the list of the richest in the world with a fortune of $ 194 billion at the end of last year, that is. An increase of $ 79 billion from 2019, ahead of Elon Musk, the founder of the Tesla electric car company, whose fortunes increased during the time of the pandemic $ 123 billion.

And CEO of "Facebook" Mark Zuckerberg had a share of Corona's bias, as his fortune reached 30 billion dollars, while the fortune of "Microsoft" co-founder Bill Gates rose 18 billion dollars to reach his fortune to 131 billion dollars.

But the one who made the biggest jump in the list of the world's top billionaires during the year of Corona was the Chinese Zun Shanshan, who was unknown last year and managed to double his fortune 11 times in less than a year thanks to the record sales achieved by his company for bottling mineral water, the best-selling in China, which increased by 997 Percent to $ 68 billion.

Corona did not exclude businesswomen from his bias. The French Francoise Betancourt, owner of L'Oréal Cosmetics, ranked first among the richest women in the world after her wealth increased by 30 percent from the year before last to reach $ 67 billion, to come second to the American Alice Walton, owner of "Wal-Mart". With a net worth of $ 62 billion, an increase of 18 percent over 2019.

And the American "MacKenzie Scott", Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, who got 4 percent of the shares of Amazon under her divorce contract, came third, which led to an increase in her fortune by $ 23 billion in the year of the pandemic, according to Sky News.

What is striking about the matter is that the Corona virus, which has invested in lives and money, did not succeed with the richest people of the world who invested it to the fullest, as their names in the list of the twenty richest in the world invested huge sums during the past year to buy shares and stakes in companies for the pharmaceutical industry and the production of health protection supplies and trade platforms Electronic and organic food production and distribution companies.

Fahmy Al Shaarawy