To get rich is glorious: survey fi nds ranks of wealthy Chinese soar

The number of high net worth individuals ( HNWIs) in China has risen nearly nine times in the past decade, a private survey released on Tuesday showed, as strong growth in the world’s second- largest economy spurred wealth creation.

Chinese with at least 10 million yuan ($ 1.47 million) of investable assets hit 1.6 million in 2016, up from 180,000 in 2006, according to the 2017 China Pri- vate Wealth Report by Bain Consulting and China Merchants Bank.

The value of the private wealth market increased to 165 trillion yuan in 2016, growing at 21 percent annually from 2014- 16.

But the growth rate of China’s private wealth market is expected to decline to 14 percent in 2017 to a total of 188 trillion yuan.

Around 120,000 HNWIs had at least 100 million yuan worth of investable assets last year, up from less than 10,000 in 2006.

The percentage of HNWIs with overseas investments increased to 56 percent in 2017 from 19 percent in 2011, but the overall percentage of assets invested overseas has stabilized since 2013.

The top four destinations for overseas investment were Hong Kong, the US, Australia and Canada, although Hong Kong’s popularity fell 18 percent and the US dropped 3 percent from 2015- 17.

Respondents said their top three reasons for investing overseas were to diversify investment risks, capture market opportunities and to migrate.

Among rich Chinese, 63 per-

cent rely on finanancial service providers to manage their domestic financial assets. Of that group, about half use private banking services provided by commercial banks.

China’s wealthy are concentrated in major cities and coastal areas, the survey found, but 22 Chinese proviNcial- level regions have at least 20,000 HNWIs. Most respondents said their top priorities were “wealth preservation” and “wealth inheritance,” in contrast to 2009 when nearly half of HNWIs surveyed said that “wealth creation” or “quality of life” were their main goals.