Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, who controls the world’s largest oil refining complex Reliance Industries, has stolen the richest man in Asia crown from Jack Ma, founder of China's biggest e-commerce company Alibaba Group.

Ambani was worth of $44.3 billion as his company surged 1.6 percent to a record 1,099.8 rupees on Friday, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Thus the Indian billionaire left famous Chinese businessman Jack Ma, whose wealth stood at $44 billion that day, to lag behind on the second place.

Reliance Industries’ chairman is currently among the top 20 richest people on the planet, according to both Forbes and Bloomberg lists. However, is still far behind the top 10, where he was featured from 2008 to 2011.

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This year Ambani increased his fortune to $4 billion as Reliance doubled its petrochemicals capacity and extended the number of users of its telecom upstart Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. Meanwhile, the former richest man Ma lost some $1,4 billion in 2018.

During the first Reliance shareholders’ “Golden Decade” meeting earlier in July, the business magnate unveiled his ambitious plans for telecommunications projects, including brand-new JioPhone and broadband service providing connectivity via optical fiber called JioGigaFiber.

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