The bosses of China's two leading Internet portals took top honors on a list of the country's 50 richest information technology tycoons released today.

　　The list was compiled by Rupert Hoogewerf who has been working on China's rich list for the past four years. He ranked Ding Lei, chairman of NetEase.com Inc, one of China's three leading portal Websites listed on the technology-dominant Nasdaq, number one among his domestic counterparts.

　　The IT ranking is the second of three separate industrial lists the British accountant has released to supplement this year's top 100 China rich people list.

　　Ding, 32, was also ranked as China's richest man with an estimated wealth of US million. This was thanks to a 50-fold surge in his company's share price since the end of 2001.

　　Chen Tianqiao, founder of online games developer Shanda Networking Development, came second with US million. The Shanghai native was ranked 10th in the 2003 overall list released on Thursday.

　　He was followed by Charles Zhang, chairman of Sohu Inc, ranked 20th overall with US million in assets.

　　Mao Daolin, former chief executive officer of Sina Inc, was 11th on the IT list with a personal wealth estimated around US million to US million.

　　"The IT sector is one of the most promising in China, so we have singled out the IT list this year," said Hoogewerf, who listed Wang Shi, chairman of property developer Vanke Group, as the most influential figure in the real estate list made public last Friday.

　　Hoogewerf and his four-member team examined public records for candidates and met venture capitalists, consultants, bankers, journalists, lawyers, accountants and IT entrepreneurs.

　　The Chinese- and English-language media relating to IT were examined as were stock market reports from the domestic exchanges, Hong Kong's main-board market and the Growth Enterprise Market and Nasdaq.

　　Businesses were evaluated by market value, beginning with the top 10 individually and then ranking the others in three categories: US million-US million, US million-US million and US million-US million.

　　For listed companies outside the Chinese mainland, the market value was multiplied by the percentage ownership, adding dividend payments less tax.

　　Non-listed companies were valued according to international practice, based on an analysis of comparable listed companies in the same industry.

　　For entrepreneurs who invested in several industries, only IT assets were valued. Valuation was conservative and excluded those for whom public information was sketchy.

　　Hoogewerf is expected to release the finance ranking tomorrow, the last of the three smaller supporting lists that sort out China's top 50 tycoons based on the market value of listed assets they control.