Credit Suisse's latest annual wealth survey released on Monday revealed a significant shift in wealth globally. The new report revealed that the number of wealthy Chinese individuals has now apparently surpassed the number of wealthy in the United States.
Both the United States and China have been churning out millionaires at a relatively fast pace. However, this year was the first time that China had recorded more members in the global top 10 percent.
The Swiss bank reported that China managed to beat the United States in this category by a fairly large margin. This year, over 100 million Chinese individuals had ranked in the global top 10 percent versus the 99 million in the United States.
According to the bank's global head of economics and research, Nannette Hechler-Fayd' here, both countries have fared very well in creating new wealthy individuals despite their standing trade dispute.
Over the past 12 months, the United States has produced hundreds of millionaires, contributing to net assets of around $3.6 trillion. Meanwhile, China had also produced hundreds of newly minted rich, contributing to an estimated net asset of $1.9 trillion.
Credit Suisse's survey revealed that the United States was able to produce more than 675,000 new millionaires. Meanwhile, Australia had the most declines with this year 124,000 fewer millionaires. The decline was mostly blamed on the recent shift in its exchange rates.
Overall, the study shows that the ranks of the world's millionaires have increased by 1.1 million to 46.8 million. All combined, the assets of the people on the list are estimated to be worth more than $158.3 trillion, or roughly 44 percent of the global total.
The report estimated that around 55,920 individuals from around the world were worth more than $100 million, while around 4,830 had net assets of more than $500 million. Global wealth for 2019 saw an increase of 2.6 percent year-on-year.
In its report, Credit Suisse also cited a decline in wealth inequality. According to the bank's survey wealth inequality has rapidly declined in most countries. The bottom 80 percent apparently now holds around 18 percent of the global wealth, a big jump from the 11 percent that was reported in 2000. The bank clarified that it was still too early to speculate a full downward trend.
The Swiss bank expects a significant rise in global wealth in the next five years, forecasting a 27 jump to $459 trillion. Over the same period, the bank expects the number of millionaires to rise to 63 million individuals based on previous data.
