DESPITE an economic slowdown and facing increased tariffs from a trade dispute with the United States, China has surpassed America in having the highest number of residents in the top 10 percent of the world’s wealth. That is according to the 2019 Global Wealth Report, put together by Credit Suisse Group, a Swiss multinational investment bank and financial services company.

“China now has 4.4 million millionaires and achieved another landmark this year with 100 million members of the global top 10 percent, overtaking for the first time the 99 million members in the United States,” say the authors of the 10th edition of the Credit Suisse wealth report.

In addition, the Chinese account for nearly half of the people considered to be in the middle class, with the Asian nation having managed to lift more than 850 million people out of poverty in the past 40 years.

China “was one of the few countries to avoid the impact of the global financial crisis,” say the experts from Credit Suisse. “China’s progress has enabled it to replace Europe as the principal source of global wealth growth and to replace Japan as the country with the second-largest number of millionaires.”

Although the country started from a much lower position at the beginning of the 21st century, China has seen accelerated economic growth and developed wealth faster than other nations. During this century, total household wealth in China has risen 17-fold, from US$3.7 trillion to US$63.8 trillion, more than triple the rate of the majority of nations.

“The global financial crisis caused a small setback, but wealth growth soon resumed and, unlike most other economies, China came close to matching its pre-crisis pace, at least until 2014,” notes the report.

By total household wealth, China is behind only the United States, buoyed by a strong property market, say the report’s authors. The number of very wealthy people in the United States is still the highest in the world. (SD-Agencies)