Until very recently, in the eyes of many, the Celestial Empire was a backward country, whose hardworking residents toiled day and night on rice paddies. Not to mention public opinion; in China itself, a couple of decades ago, being rich was considered indecent and even dangerous. But that was yesterday. Last year, China ranked second in the world in the number of dollar billionaires after the United States. In 2007, there were already 106 of them in the country, compared to 15 in 2006 and 9 in 2002.
Chinese 'ordinary' millionaires are emerging just as rapidly. According to data from the investment bank Merrill Lynch and the consulting company Capgemini, there were 345 thousand residents in the PRC with more than $1 million in their accounts. About 5 thousand of them had fortunes exceeding $30 million. China still has a long way to go to catch up with America, which has 3 million millionaires.
However, according to the Chinese themselves, the number of their wealthy compatriots is greatly underestimated. As the newspaper China Daily reports, in the communist country, wealthy people prefer not to advertise their incomes. Moreover, the publication notes, Chinese rich people have to flaunt their money mainly abroad: in China itself, the elite leisure and entertainment industry is in its infancy.
Thus, the newspaper concluded that the annual growth in the number of millionaires in China is not at all the 8% calculated by Merrill Lynch specialists, but at least 25%. And therefore, China is not only catching up with developed countries in the number of rich people, but also overtaking its neighbors in the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, China) in terms of millionaire growth rates.
So, for Russia in 2006, this figure was 15%, and the number of holders of million-dollar bank accounts was just over 100 thousand. Brazil, also included in the list of countries that are fastest at producing millionaires, could boast only a 60-thousand increase in 2007. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the number of Brazilians with fortunes exceeding $1 million was 190 thousand.