As the wages of China’s legions of migrant workers begin to rise, so to do the numbers of millionaires. In 2010, the number of millionaires in China rose by 31% over the preceding year. From Bloomberg:
Millionaire households jumped 31 percent to 1.11 million in 2010 from the previous year, a BCG Global Wealth Survey released yesterday showed. That puts China in third place for millionaire households, behind the 5.22 million in the U.S. and Japan’s 1.53 million.
China ranks eighth globally for households with assets worth more than $100 million. Wealth in privately held businesses and property wasn’t accounted for in the survey, thereby missing a major chunk of economic assets in the mainland.
“This grossly underestimates true overall wealth in China,” said Tjun Tang, a partner at BCG in Hong Kong and one of the report’s authors. The survey also excludes works of art, fine wines and yachts, a growing class of assets among China’s well-heeled.
