The latest Credit Suisse report on global wealth found out that there are now more rich people in China than those in the United States. This is the first time the Asian economic power took over the U.S. in this aspect.
According to the Global Wealth Report 2019 by Credit Suisse, the U.S. recorded 99 million Americans in the world's top 10 percent of the richest people, while China had 100 million rich Chinese citizens.
Global Head of Economics and Research at Credit Suisse, Nannette Hechler-Fayd' here, noted that despite the trade war between two of the world's largest economies, the countries both contributed largely to the world's overall creation of wealth.
While the U.S. garnered more in terms of wealth contribution at $3.8 trillion and China contributed $1.9 trillion to the world's wealth, the report recognized China's "rapid transformation" as an edge in giving birth to more millionaires.
In this year's survey, it was revealed that the Chinese market added 158,000 millionaires to the previous count. There are now 4.4 million millionaires in the country who are helping drive the domestic and international economy.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom saw its millionaire count drop due to the ongoing economic decline in the country. According to The Guardian, the 2019 world wealth survey revealed the number of British millionaires decreased by 27,000.
Despite the drop in millionaires to 2.46 million, the U.K. managed to snag the fourth place still in the top 10. Authors of the report, noted, though, that their outlook of the British economy is "uncertain."
The report further explained that the British stock market showed clear signs of a slowdown as well as high volatility of the exchange rate during the summer months.
So far, the U.S. holds the top spot in the top 10 richest countries, according to the Swiss bank. China is in second place, and Japan held on to its third-place seat. In terms of wealth growth, the U.S. is still leading.
Meanwhile, another part of the study revealed that the number of millionaires in the world ballooned by almost 47 million. The bigger picture is, these people now have control almost half of the world's total wealth.
Despite the apparent wealth inequality, the report also declared that this particular issue saw a slowdown over the past three years. The authors attributed a decline in inequality to the increasing wealth of the global middle-class community.
Over the past year, the middle-class people - those who earned anywhere between $10,000 and $100,000 - expanded to 1.7 billion people. The numbers account for the biggest growth expansion in any of the existing wealth segments.
