Although most of the world’s 10 wealthiest people continue to be American, data from various sources confirm that Asians are climbing relentlessly toward the top of the global wealth ladder.
Adani was reported by Indian media to be the first Asian to make the top three in late August after he was ranked third in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. US business magazine Forbes subsequently confirmed that ranking.
The chairman of Adani Group, which manages ports and mines and trades resources, is currently hovering around the fourth slot according to Bloomberg and Forbes, whose indexes reflect daily fluctuations in the value of shares held by rich people. In September, Adani briefly hit second place behind Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, the US electric vehicle maker.
The top 10 lists of the world’s wealthiest people have long been dominated by American entrepreneurs and businesspeople, creating the impression that billionaires are somehow an American phenomenon. The reverse is true if the entire wealth landscape is surveyed.
A region-by-region analysis of assets owned by more than 2,400 people on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List showed US$4.7 trillion in North America as of Thursday, followed by US$3.5 trillion in Asia and US$2.4 trillion in Europe.
When it came to the number of billionaires, however, Asia had 951, comfortably outnumbering all other regions. North America has 777 and Europe 536.
Proportionally, the picture is slightly different, of course. Asia has 60% of the world’s population, compared to just over 4% in the US and less than 10% in Europe.
By country, the US ranked first with 719 billionaires followed by China with 440. India has 61. The ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have a total of 114 billionaires, while Taiwan has 45, South Korea 28 and Japan 27.
The richest of the rich are sometimes called plutocrats on account of the influence their wealth affords them. Their numbers began increasing in Europe during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. They have multiplied in the US on the back of globalisation and technological innovation.
Emerging countries are now producing more billionaires than Europe and the US managed in the 19th and 20th centuries because of advances in communication technologies and globalisation.
In fact, the speed of asset accumulation by rich people is faster in emerging countries. An analysis of data used in the Global Wealth Report released by Credit Suisse in September found that the value of assets held by the wealthiest top 1% of people soared 11 times in India and 34 times in China between 2000 and 2021 in comparison with 3.6 and 1.2 times in the US and Japan, respectively.
Will Asian billionaires soon top the list of the world’s wealthiest people?
“Rises in real estate prices are the main driver for the wealth accumulation by Asians,” said Soichiro Matsumoto, chief investment officer at Credit Suisse Wealth Management in Japan. As people ranked high in the rich list are mainly business owners with large numbers of shares in global companies rather than real estate, Asians will “need time to catch up” with Americans, Matsumoto said.
Some countries are meanwhile cracking down on the rich. The slogan “common prosperity” was coined by Chinese president Xi Jinping in August 2021 to redress disparities. It required Jack Ma, founder of the Alibaba Group, and other wealthy people in China to reduce their assets through voluntary donations and other means.
Now that countries are tightening monetary policy, Asian billionaires are facing some adverse effects such as stock price falls and the dollar’s appreciation. While the number of people on the Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List dropped by 245 in about six months, Asians accounted for 126 of them, compared with 27 North Americans.
Nevertheless, wealthy people in emerging countries are backed by increases in domestic demand and infrastructure development. Credit Suisse forecasted that the number of millionaires, with assets of US$1 million or more, will roughly double in China and India by 2026 compared to 2021.
Although Asians are unlikely to replace the world’s most wealthy people tomorrow, the surge in increasing wealthy Asians will continue.