Singapore to be world’s richest country by 2050.
Centa-millionaires in Asia will continue to outnumber those in North America and Western Europe by 2050, a Knight Frank and Citi Private Bank study showed. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea are projected to be the world’s richest countries on a per capita basis by 2050.
Centa-millionaires are the multi-millionaires with $100 million or more in assets. There are now around 18,000 “centa-millionaires” in the region covering Southeast Asia, China and Japan, more than the 17,000 in North America and 14,000 in Western Europe.
“While rapid GDP growth does not in itself guarantee a sharp rise in high networth individuals, rapidly growing economies do provide key opportunities for large-scale wealth creation,” commented in the study Grainne Gilmore, head of UK Residential Research at Knight Frank.
According to Ledbury Research’s data cited in the study, by 2016, Southeast Asia, China and Japan are expected to have 26,000 centa-millionaires, compared with 21,000 in North America and 15,000 in Western Europe.
On a country basis, the United States will lead in 2016 with 17,100 centa-millionaires but China is expected to double its numbers to 14,000.
“Southeast Asian deca-millionaires — those with $10 million or more in assets — already outnumber those in Europe and are expected to overtake those in the US in the coming decade,” says the study authors.
Top 5 world’s richest economies on a per capita basis by 2050:
1. Singapore – $137,710 expected city-state’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 2050
2. Hong Kong – $116,639
3. Taiwan – $114,093
4. South Korea – $107,752
5. US
