7,100 Thousand Millionaires in the World

In 17th June, Merrill Lynch, the world’s largest asset manager and Cap Gemini Earnst & Young, one of the most reputable management consulting company, revealed a fact through annual report of ‘The Wealth of the World’. According to the report, even though a serious depression last year, new 200 thousand millionaires were born in the world. In Korea, there are about 50 thousand financial millionaires.

The number of millionaires is only 0.1% of the world population, but they increased their wealth by 2.6 trillion dollars and occupied 40% of the world financial wealth. The total wealth of the millionaires who possess more than 30 million dollars are 8,370 billion dollars.

Experts analyzed that high-tech stocks collapsed due to the 9.11 Terrorism in US last year, however the millionaires increased the wealth by investing in securities, real estates, etc. Kelly Martin, the Managing Director of International Private Clients of Merrill Lynch said “ the increasing level of financial wealth last year was the worst since 1997” and added “ considering the serious depression of the economy last year, we need to appreciate their ability to accumulate the wealth.”

Cap Gemini Christopher Humphrey prospected that the net wealth of millionaire would increase by 8% every year for 5 years in the future, and the amount in the end of 2006 would be 38.5 trillion dollars.

According to continental classification, Europe recorded number one with 2.54 million millionaires, North America with 2.22 million, Asia 1.73 million, Middle East 290 thousand and South America 280 thousand.

The number of millionaire in Europe is almost static, while the number increased dramatically in South America (12.0%) and Asia (7.0%).

In developed countries including G7, the net wealth of millionaires increased by 1.9% compared to the previous year, while in other countries the net wealth increased by 4.7%. It reflects that the increasing rate of the wealth in developing countries is faster than that of developed countries.

Merrill Lynch interpreted it as a result of the fact that the increasing rate of stock value was very low in Western countries and the rate dropped by 13% in the world, while the stock value increased in some Asian countries such as Korea, Thailand, etc.

konihong@donga.com