Rabat – The American business magazine Forbes published its 2019 list today of top billionaires in the world, ranking Aziz Akhannouch, the Moroccan minister of agriculture and fisheries, number 1,168 out of 2,153 listed billionaires around the world.
Akhannouch, 58, has an estimated net wealth of $2 billion, and a $2.3 billion real-time net worth.
Akhannouch owes his fortune to petroleum. He is the majority owner of Akwa Group, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate company founded by his father, Ahmed Ouldhadj Akhannouch, and his father’s partner, Ahmed Wakrim, in 1932.
Forbes’ new list also included Morocco’s second richest man, Othman Benjelloun, the CEO of BMCE Bank of Africa, who ranked number 1,281.
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Benjelloun, 86, whose BMCE has branches in over 20 African countries, including Senegal, Kenya, and Congo, has a current net wealth of $1.9 billion and a real-time net worth of $1.8 billion.
Banking and insurance are Benjelloun’s main source of wealth, according to Forbes.
Benjelloun also has a stake in French telecommunications firm Orange, one of the three leading telecommunication companies in Morocco.
In Forbes’ 2019 Africa’s Billionaires list published in January, Akhannouch ranked 13th and Benjelloun 15th.
The world’s current richest man, who dethroned Microsoft founder Bill Gates in Forbes’ list as of 2017 ,is Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, a multinational technology company focusing in e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.
Bezos has a fortune of $131 billion. Bill Gates, now the world’s second wealthiest person, has a fortune of $96.5 billion.
