China's "leisure class" is viewed as a social stratum who loves showing off wealth. (Photo : Reuters)
Stellar stock market performance and an optimistic attitude in investing among Chinese households have helped create one million new millionaires in China, according to a new global wealth report released on Monday, June 15.
The report, which was titled "Global Wealth 2015: Winning the Growth Game," was released by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
With its new crop of millionaires, China bagged the second place among countries with the largest number of millionaires with 3.6 million. The top place, however, belonged to the U.S., which has a millionaire population of roughly 6.9 million. Japan, on the other hand, is home to approximately 1.1 million millionaires.
"As the economy stabilizes, more assets will be kept in [China] both at local firms and at branches of international managers," said Daniel Kessler, one of the partners at BCG.
The global wealth report also showed that the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) has surpassed Europe in wealth for the first time in history. With wealth totaling from $47.3 trillion to $42.5 trillion, the Asia-Pacific will become the richest region in the world in 2016, with its private wealth projected to be around $57 trillion.
Federico Burgoni from BCG Asia-Pacific's asset and wealth-management segment shared: "When it comes to wealth, Asia is the place to be. China and India are speed driving the growth in Asia Pacific, but Indonesia and Thailand are also producing growth."
He also added that "more than two-thirds of the new wealthy (in Asia Pacific) were entrepreneurs."
What makes an individual a millionaire? For BCG, millionaires are those who have $1 million or more in monetized wealth, spread over bonds, stock, cash, and other financial assets. Business ownership and real estate are not included in the wealth measurement.
Last year, the total number of millionaire households across the globe totaled to 17 million, which showed a two-million increase from 2013.
