Singapore's richest man has added US$3.36 billion (S$4.8 billion) to his net worth in 2020 as a result of the surge in demand for ventilators, Bloomberg reported.

Li Xiting, a Singapore citizen and Chairman of the Shenzhen-based company, Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., now has a fortune of US$12.5 billion (S$17.8 billion) as of Apr. 2, 2020, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

In addition, Li's gain of S$4.8 billion is the second highest worldwide for the year, just behind Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man and CEO of Amazon, who saw a gain of S$4.82 billion for the same period.

Shenzhen Mindray is China's largest manufacturer for medical equipment

In May 2019, Bloomberg reported that Shenzhen Mindray was China's largest manufacturer of medical equipment.

The company currently produces 3,000 ventilators a month and stated this week that orders from Europe have greatly increased, with Italy ordering up to nearly 10,000 pieces of equipment, which includes both monitors and ventilators.

The company's ventilators have also been authorised for use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), under an emergency rule aimed at addressing the shortage of ventilators in the country.

As such, this has provided opportunities for Chinese ventilator products to enter the U.S., and boosted the company's prospects.

The company's board secretary, Li Wenmei, added however, that the demand is still several times what the company can handle.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Li said:

"The demand is several times the orders we can take, the orders are several times our current capacity, and our capacity now is already several times what it used to be."

Company value increased sharply after leaving U.S. market

Week in China further reported that Shenzhen Mindray's value had greatly increased after it delisted from New York in 2016 and re-listed in China instead in Oct. 2018.

The company's market value then rose by about 135 per cent from Oct. 2018 to Jul. 2019, which made Li the third richest-person in Singapore at that time with a fortune of US$8.2 billion (S$11.7 billion).

Shenzhen Mindray does not appear to have an office in Singapore listed on its website.

The company had been first founded in 1991, and developed its business largely in life monitoring systems, and equipment for medical imaging and in-vitro diagnosis.

Top image via Weiwenku