Dubai: The UAE and three other GCC countries rank among the top-10 countries in the world by proportion of millionaire households, a study conducted by Boston Consulting Group has said.
"Qatar stood at second place with 14.3 percent millionaire households, Kuwait came in third (11.8 percent), the UAE came at the sixth place (5 percent) and Bahrain stood at tenth place (3.2 percent)," according to BCG's new report, 'The Battle to Regain Strength: Global Wealth 2012'.
"In 2011, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE and Bahrain were among the top ten countries in the world by proportion of millionaire households," Markus Massi, Partner and Managing Director at BCG Middle East said.
The highest density of millionaire households in 2011 was in Singapore, where more than 17 percent of all households have private wealth of USD 1 million or higher, the report said.
Private financial wealth in the Middle East and Africa grew to USD 4.5 trillion in 2011, up from USD 4.3 trillion in 2010, marking a 4.7 percent increase, the report said.
Furthermore, it is expected to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 6.6 percent by 2016, to reach $6.1 trillion, largely as a result of continued strong GDP expansion in oil-rich countries, it said.
"We see this growth despite the fact that Middle Eastern and African stock markets suffered from the political instability caused by the uprisings across the Arab world in 2011," said Sven-Olaf Vathje, Partner and Managing Director at BCG Middle East.
The BCG study also estimates that between 2011 and 2016, private financial wealth in the region will grow by a CAGR of 8 percent for households worth more than USD 100 million, 8 percent for households worth between USD 1- USD100 million and 5 percent for households worth less than USD 1 million.
For private financial wealth originating from Middle East and Africa in 2011, Switzerland was the biggest offshore centre attracting USD 0.56 trillion, followed by the UK drawing USD 0.33 trillion, it said.
In terms of percentage of private wealth booked offshore, Saudi Arabia (65 percent) took the lead in the region, followed by Kuwait (53 percent), UAE (52 percent), Tunisia (45 percent), Bahrain (37 percent), Lebanon (34 percent) and Morocco (30 percent), according to the report.
PTI
