New millionaires in China and India helped propel the combined wealth of the Asia-Pacific region’s richest individuals past their peers in Europe, with the region’s wealthiest predicted to become more affluent than millionaires in North America over the next 12 months.
New “millionaire households” were also created more quickly in the Asia-Pacific than anywhere else, the Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) annual global wealth report found, as the world’s 17 million households worth more than US$1 million again grew richer last year.
For the first time in the survey’s 15-year history, the Asia-Pacific region — which excludes Japan — overtook Europe to become the world’s second-wealthiest region, with US$47 trillion in private wealth, up 29 percent on 2013.
North America, where private wealth totals US$50.8 trillion, remains the wealthiest, but it will be surpassed next year, when the wealth of Asia-Pacific’s so-called “high net worths” reaches US$57 trillion, the survey predicted.
A booming equity market helped all wealthy individuals last year, but Asia also benefited from the fortunes being created by a new generation of entrepreneurs, such as Jack Ma (馬雲), of e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴).
The report said Asia’s lead in growth would be exaggerated in the future, as stock markets slow.
“We have seen a really strong equity market that has had a very strong effect on existing assets. [However,] looking forward, we assume a moderation in the market performance, with the main difference the newly created wealth in Asia. Two-thirds of the growth in Asia-Pacific is coming from entrepreneurs,” said Daniel Kessler, global leader of BCG’s wealth management division. “We expect Asia-Pacific to add US$27.8 trillion [to the wealth of the region’s richest] over the next five years, of which 70 percent will be China and 15 percent India.”
The data showed another profitable year for the world’s ultra-rich as a whole, with their total wealth growing by 12 percent to US$164 trillion — about 10 times the size of the US’ annual GDP.
Within that, the report estimated that private financial wealth in western Europe grew 6.6 percent to nearly US$40 trillion last year and by 19 percent to US$3 trillion in eastern Europe.
In the UK, the number of households worth more than US$1 million grew by 7 percent last year to 730,000 — with 1,019 worth more than US$100 million — while the UK’s private financial wealth rose by 11.5 percent to US$9.7 trillion on the back of the decent performance by equities and bonds.
The US has the most households worth more than US$100 million with 5,201, ahead of No. 2 China’s 1,037 households, the UK in third and India in fourth with 928.
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