Amedical intern unsure of which specialty to choose asked his professor, who suggested: "The diseases of the rich". Good advice. Rich people have money to spend and they want the best of everything. They tend to be less price-sensitive and more than happy to swallow a big markup in return for quality wrapped in obsequiousness.

China has a growing number of rich people, as you may have noticed from the sleek black SUVs racing around the main cities, the availability of top price luxury goods and the average cut of the clothes one sees in hotel lobbies.

Rich people anywhere generally tend to be pretty proud of the fact that they have been so successful, and businesses want to identify and make contact with rich people to offer them opportunities to spend their money. A list of the richest people in China was a great way of meeting both needs.

The list, today known as the Hurun List, was initiated in 1999 by an English analyst and entrepreneur named Rupert Hoogewerf, initially in association with Forbes magazine, then with Euromoney, and .nally through his own company.

The China Rich List was high pro.le, verging on controversial from the start, both because of the apparent contradiction with China's ideological underpinnings, and also because rich people in China, while happy to be known as "rich",are not necessarily over the moon about hav-ing specific numbers bandied about for all including tax bureau officials to see.

Voyage into China's market

There was a period where appearing on the Rich List was like the kiss of death. Several members of the list were arrested or dis-graced as a result of financial shenanigans which would no doubt have come to light anyway, but which were far more visible than they would otherwise have been as a result of Rupert's Rich List.

People like Yang Bin, the tulip king of Shenyang, who was number two on the 2001 Rich List and then ended up in jail.

But this year the mood seems to have changed. There has been no sense of un-ease from those on the list. Maybe China's richest are increasingly organizing their finances in a plausibly deniable way.

The scale of the list and the numbers all re.ect the growing prosperity of China's coastal cities. The number of US dollar billionaires on the list is seven, compared to only three on last year's list. Also the list has been lengthened from a slim 100 names in previous years to a gargantuan 400 names this year.

The quadrupling of the list reflects several things there are simply more rich people here these days; China has become more transparent, making it easier to find rich people and estimate the value of their assets; and the demand for information on rich people has grown.

The last factor is what presumably drives Rupert and his colleagues at the Hurun Report's headquarters in Shanghai. There are various business models that can be built out once the database of wealthy people exists, and a clue to at least one of them can be found on the Hurun Report's website. It features at the top a banner ad for the China Luxury Summit to be held in early December.

The show is billed as "A voyage into the expanding China's luxury market",and the slight grammatical error gives it a localized charm. It will provide an opportunity for companies wanting to sell the best of everything to meet people who want to buy the best of everything private aircraft, luxury villas, be-jeweled time pieces, glamorous apparel, and the most attentive of high-end financial and investment services.

Top of the Rich List this year, the rich-est individual in China with an estimated US$1.7 billion in personal assets, is Huang Guangyu, the head of the Gome household appliances empire. Number two is Yan Jiehe, the boss of China Pacific Construction Group with US$1.5 billion in assets. Number three is Chen Tianqiao, head of the Shanda online games company that went public on Nasdaq earlier this year, with US$1.45 billion.

But it is probably the middle reaches of the list that present the most opportunities for people wishing to do business with China's rich. The Chinese equivalents of Warren Buffett have already figured out what to do with their money it is the nou-veau riche moving quickly up the list who present the biggest opportunities.

So go to the Hurun website and figure out an approach. There's gold in them thar lists.