India seems to be minting millionaires. Its millionaire population in 2005 shot up by 19.3 per cent over the past year, second only to South Korea’s 21.3 per cent on world charts.
The World Wealth Report, released by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, says India had 83,000 millionaires (people with more than $1 million or Rs 4.5 crore in net financial assets, excluding their residence and consumables).
The rate at which India is producing rich people is hardly surprising, says the report. It goes on: "Also according to the most recent Goldman Sachs projections, India has the potential to become the fourth largest economy by 2025 and the third largest by 2050, behind only the United States and China."
Worldwide, the number of millionaires swelled by half a million in 2005 and there were 8.7 million of them, more than New York's population.
On the top of the charts is the US with a millionaire population of 2.67 million, nearly a third of the global millionaire population. Germany, the UK, China, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and Russia, among others, each have more than 100,000 millionaires.
The wealth of the millionaires totalled $33.3 trillion in 2005, up 8.5 per cent. The upper crust of this league is made of 85,400 "ultra high-net-worth-individuals" with financial assets of more than $30 million each.
{{/usCountry}}The wealth of the millionaires totalled $33.3 trillion in 2005, up 8.5 per cent. The upper crust of this league is made of 85,400 "ultra high-net-worth-individuals" with financial assets of more than $30 million each.
{{/usCountry}}The Asia-Pacific region, the report says, has surpassed Europe to become the second most popular region after North America for international investment.
And if the report is to be believed the India story will get better. China and India are set to drive the Asia-Pacific region, helping it capture an increased share of global output.