The number of millionaires in Spain (those who have more than a million dollars, or 775,000 euros) is going to grow by 110% over the next five years to reach a total of 616,000, according to the latest Global Wealth Report produced annually by Credit Suisse.
The study estimates that there were 313,000 millionaires in Spain half way through this year, compared with the 400,000 there were half way through 2011, a variation that can be explained by the decrease in the value of assets and the depreciation of the euro with respect to the dollar.
In the world as a whole, there will be 46.5 million millonaires by 2017, 62% more than the 28.6 million there are currently.
The countries with the highest number of millionaires continue to be the USA and European nations, but between now and 2017 the greatets increase in the number of millionaires will be seen in the emerging economies, says the report. China will go from having 960,000 millionaires to having 1.9 million, whereas countries like Brazil, Russia, Poland and Malaysia will more than double their number of millionaires.
On the other hand, household wealth (liquid assets plus fixed assets - mainly property, less debts) will grow by around 48% worldwide over the next five years, reaching 330 billion dollars. China will contribute 18 billion to this increased wealth, 17% of the global increase, and it will overtake Japan as the richest Asian nation and the second richest nation in the world. Nonetheless, the United States of America will maintain its supremacy in this ranking, whilst France and Germany will occupy fourth and fifth places respectively.
With regard to the current situation, by half way through 2012 global wealth had dropped by 5.2% compared with the same period during the previous year, the first fall since the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The different impact of this latest recession coupled with the appreciation of the dollar means that only four countries had seen their wealth increase by more than 100 million dollars: the USA (1.3 billion), China (560 million), Japan (370 million) and Colombia (100 million). On the other hand, the depreciation of the euro against the dollar has had a more negative effect on Eurozone countries. France has seen the greatest fall in its wealth (a 2.2 billion dollar drop), followed by Italy (2.1 billion), Germany (1.8 billion) and Spain (870 million).
