Taiwan has 13th most millionaires of any country
2017/11/15 17:26:11
CNA file photo
Taipei, Nov. 15 (CNA) Taiwan has 381,000 individuals with a net worth of US$1 million or above, the 13th most of any country in the world, according to the latest edition of the Global Wealth Report by the Credit Suisse Research Institute (CSRI).
The number was 58,000 higher than the 323,000 millionaires Taiwan had in 2016, according to the report, which was published on the CSRI website on Tuesday.
With a population of 24 million, "Taiwan has high average wealth and only moderate wealth inequality," the report said.
Only 7 percent of Taiwan's adult population has less than US$10,000 in wealth, far lower than the 70 percent ratio for the world as a whole, and 44 percent of adults have wealth exceeding US$100,000, nearly five times higher than the worldwide average of 9 percent, the report said.
Also, Taiwan's mean wealth of US$188,080 per adult, is well above that of most countries in the Asia-Pacific region and similar to that of Western Europe, the report indicated.
"Taiwan has a high saving rate and well-developed financial institutions, so it is not surprising that the composition of household wealth is skewed towards financial assets. The latter now make up 66 percent of total assets. Debt is relatively modest, equaling 14 percent of gross assets," the report said.
According to the CSRI survey, there are 36 million millionaires around the world, with 15.3 million of them in the United States alone.
The five countries with the most millionaires in the world were the United States (15.3 million), Japan (2.7 million), the United Kingdom (2.2 million), Germany (1.95 million) and China (1.9 million).
The annual report found that total global wealth has reached US$280 trillion, up 27 percent from the level a decade ago at the onset of the financial crisis in 2008.
In the past 12 months, total global wealth grew by 6.4 percent, the report said, the fastest pace of wealth creation in a single year since 2012 and one of the best results since the financial crisis.
Moreover, as wealth increased faster than the population, global mean wealth per adult reached a new record high of US$56,540, the report said.
(By Elizabeth Hsu)
Enditem/ls
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/afav/201711150013.aspx
