China's millionaires leap past 1 million on growth, savings

HONG KONG: China has more than a million millionaires as economic growth, savings and a strengthening currency helped swell their ranks by 262,000 last year, according to a Boston Consulting Group survey. Millionaire households jumped 31% in 2010 from the previous year to 1.11 million, the BCG Global Wealth Survey released on Tuesday showed.

China's number of millionaire households ranks it third, behind the 5.22 million in the US and Japan's 1.53 million, according to BCG. Still, wealth in privately held businesses and property wasn't accounted for in the survey, thereby missing a major chunk of economic assets in the mainland.

“This grossly underestimates true overall wealth in China,” said Tjun Tang, a partner at BCG in Hong Kong and one of the report's authors. The survey also excludes works of art, fine wines and yachts, a growing class of assets among China's well-heeled .

China ranks eighth globally for households with assets worth more than $100 million, with 393, according to the survey. The Asian nation's affluent class only holds about 5% of its wealth offshore, said Tang, and international wealth management companies are constrained by the number of products they can offer inside China .

The number of millionaire households globally increased to about 12.5 million, the Bostonbased firm said in a study released on Wednesday. Singapore millionaires rose by almost 33% after jumping about 40% a year earlier.

Singapore had the highest concentration of millionaires, accounting for 15.5% of the population, the study showed, followed by Switzerland with 9.9%, Qatar with 8.9% and Hong Kong with 8.7%. Hong Kong had the 10th most millionaire households in the world, with 200,000, as well as 223 households worth more than $100 million. The Chinese city saw 10,000 newly minted millionaire households last year.

In 2005 it had 120,000 millionaires , BCG said. Wealth in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 11.4% from 2010 to 2015, raising its share of global wealth from 18% to 23%.