A 10% more millionaires in city-state
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The rallying share market sharply increased the ranks of Singapore's wealthy last year. New figures out yesterday show that there were 101,000 millionaires by the end of 2012 in Singapore, a jump of 10.3 per cent over 2011.
Their total wealth went through the roof as well and was estimated to have hit US$489 billion (Bt15.2 trillion), up 11.5 per cent on the 2011 level.
The report by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management defines a millionaire as someone with US$1 million or more in investable assets.
Barend Janssens, the head of emerging markets at RBC, said yesterday: “Singapore’s prowess as a financial centre is without doubt, very, very strong.
“We see interest out of the region for people to invest here or invest that money through Singapore.”
Yet while the numbers of Singapore’s wealthy and the value of their assets is growing fast, the expansion rate is still behind Hong Kong’s.
The number of Hong Kong millionaires soared by 35.7 per cent to 114,000 last year from 2011, while their total wealth grew at 37.2 per cent to US$560 billion.
The jump was high due to Hong Kong coming from a “much poorer performance on the stock exchange in 2011”, said Janssens.
He also noted that Indonesia and Thailand were doing well, with double-digit growth in the number of millionaires, although full figures for the region are not in yet.
Credit Suisse economist Michael Wan said Singapore’s growth rates may seem lower than other countries, but factors such as the size of population have to be considered.
