Millionaires in India grow @ 19.3%

The rate at which India is producing rich people is hardly surprising, says a report, writes S Rajagopalan. | Top 10

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).

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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 US 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.

When it comes to the number of millionaires, the US tops with 2.67 million, nearly a third of the global millionaire population. Germany, the UK, China, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and Russia 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.