Millionaires from the Asia-Pacific region have, for the first time, surpassed their European counterparts in total wealth, with the top of the list held by millionaires from China and India, a recent study revealed on Wednesday.
The report on wealthy individuals, defined as those with investable assets of at least one million US dollars, was published by Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management and consulting firm Capgemini. The global population covered by this report returned to the figure of 10 million last year after the global crisis, with the largest share of the wealthy still recorded in the United States and Germany. "In the case of the Asia-Pacific region, the wealthy population increased by 25.8 percent to three million, thus catching up with Europe for the first time, after their number was reduced by 14.2 percent in 2008," the World Wealth Report further states.
Total wealth in the region increased by nearly a third, to 9.7 trillion dollars, more than compensating for last year’s losses, and for the first time exceeded the 9.5 trillion dollars worth of wealth of wealthy Europeans, the study showed. In 2009, eight out of the 10 economies with the highest growth in the number of such defined wealthy individuals were located in the Asia-Pacific region, led by Hong Kong, where their number doubled due to a 73.5 percent jump in stock prices on the local exchange, the report’s authors further explain. Among others from that region, the list of the top 10 countries in the world includes India, Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam, in that order. Israel and Norway, which ranked third and ninth on that list, are the only ones not from the Asia-Pacific region. (H)
