Growth in global private wealth slowed significantly in 2018. In Austria, too, financial assets increased only slightly. The worldwide number of millionaires, however, continues to grow rapidly. This is the result of the nineteenth Global Wealth Report of consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
Global private wealth rose 1.6 percent in 2018 to $ 205.9 trillion ($ 184 trillion). This increase is well below the 7.5% reported last year and the average global growth of 6.2% over the last five years. As a reason for the low growth, the report called the poor performance of the stock markets, especially in the fourth quarter of 2018.
In Western Europe, personal wealth grew only marginally by 0.6 percent, while North America and Japan recorded a fall of 0.4 and 1.3 percent respectively. The fast-growing emerging markets also posted growth slumps. In Asia, the growth rate of private wealth plunged from 11.5 percent in 2017 to 7.1 percent in 2018, mainly due to developments in China. Over the next five years, global private wealth is expected to grow by 5.7 percent annually.
Austria: 715 billion in financial assets
With US $ 85.3 trillion in private wealth, the US tops the list, followed by China ($ 21.0 trillion), Japan ($ 16.3 trillion), the United Kingdom ($ 8.9 trillion). Dollars) and Germany ($ 7.4 trillion).
More millionaires again
The number of millionaires (in US dollars) grew by 2.1 percent to 22.1 million in 2018. Together, they continue to own about half of the world’s private wealth. About two-thirds of millionaires in the US live in the United States (14.7 million), followed by China (1.3 million), Japan (1.1 million) and Switzerland (0.5 million). The latter overtook the United Kingdom (0.4 million) in the ranking, which ranks fifth with Germany, France, Italy and Canada.
