Chaudhary Group (CG) President Binod Chaudhary has climbed six rungs on the Forbes billionaire list, making him the world’s 1,561st richest person. 

Chaudhari, who made his debut in the Forbes billionaire list in 2013, saw his fortune jump by around $200 million last year. Forbes has valued Chaudhary’s net worth at $1.5 billion, up 14.5 percent than in 2017. Chaudhary’s net worth stood at $1.31 billion in 2017.

Chaudhary, a parliament member representing the Nepali Congress, controls CG Corp Global and is Nepal’s sole billionaire, according to Forbes, a US-based media company which profiles and lists world’s billionaires. 

Chaudhary’s biggest asset is a controlling stake in Nabil Bank, one of the largest private sector banks in Nepal. He has also established factories of Wai Wai instant noodles in a number of countries, including India, Serbia, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. CG has also invested in hotels in Asia and Africa with assets consisting of 29 owned and 70 managed properties, including a string of luxury hotels with India’s Taj hotel chain, says Forbes. CG’s other business interests include electronics, trading, healthcare, infrastructure, including hydropower, education and real estate. 

The latest billionaire list of Forbes has featured a record 2,208 billionaires from 72 countries and territories including the first ever from Hungary and Zimbabwe. This elite group is worth $9.1 trillion, up 18 percent than in 2017. Their average net worth is a record $4.1 billion, says Forbes, which had featured 2,043 billionaires in 2017.

As in the past, Americans have continued to dominate the billionaire list. The US is now home to record 585 billionaires, followed by mainland China with 373. 

Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet and the first centi-billionaire atop Forbes’ annual ranking. Shares of his e-commerce giant Amazon rose 59 percent in 12 months, helping boost his fortune by $39.2 billion to $112 billion. With this gain, he has moves ahead of Bill Gates, who is now number 2 in the Forbes billionaire list with net worth of $90 billion. This is the biggest gap between the top two billionaires in the list since 2001, according to Forbes.

In Asia, Ma Huateng (also known as Pony Ma) of China is the wealthiest person, ranked number 17 in the world, thanks in part to his firm Tencent’s WeChat, a ubiquitous social-messaging app with nearly 1 billion active users. Tencent also has stakes in Tesla, Snapchat parent Snap and music-streaming service Spotify. 

Forbes billionaire list also features Nepal-born Acharya Balkrishna as the world’s 274th richest person. He has a net worth of $6.1 billion. He derives his fortune from fast-growing consumer goods giant Patanjali Ayurved. Balkrishna owns 98.6 percent of the privately-held company, which he cofounded with politically well-connected yoga guru Baba Ramdev.