New Delhi: India witnessed the second largest number of millionaire outflow globally after China, with 7,000 high net worth individuals changing their domicile during 2017, 16% more than last year, according to a report.
According to the report by New World Wealth, 7,000 ultra- rich Indians shifted overseas in 2017. In 2016, the figure stood at 6,000, while in 2015, as many as 4,000 millionaires shifted base.
Globally, as many as 10,000 super-rich Chinese changed their domicile in 2017. Other countries that witnessed large high net worth individual (HNWis) outflows include Turkey (6,000), United Kingdom (4,000), France (4,000) and the Russian Federation (3,000).
As per the migration trends, Indian HNWIs moved to the U.S., the UAE, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, while Chinese HNWIs moved to the U.S, Canada and Australia.
The report, however, noted that the outflows of HNWIs from India and China are not worthy of “concern” as these countries are producing far more new HNWIs than they are losing.
“Also, once the standard of living in these countries improves, we expect several wealthy people to move back,” it added.
On the other hand, Australia was the top country for HNWI inflows in 2017 with 10,000 ultra-rich people shifting base to this country, beating out its main rival the U.S. for the third year running.
Over the past 10 years, total wealth held in Australia has risen by 83% compared to 20% growth in the U.S. As a result, the average Australian is now significantly wealthier than the average American citizen, which was not the case 10 years ago, it added.
The U.S. was the second most popular destination for migrating HNWIs in 2017 at 9,000, followed by Canada (5,000) and the United Arab Emirates (5,000).
As per the report, India has been ranked sixth in the list of wealthiest countries with total wealth of $8,230 billion.
India is home to 3,30,400 HNWIs (individuals with $1 million or more in net assets). Globally, India was ranked 9th in this aspect. The country has 20,730 multi-millionaires, 7th largest in the world. And in terms of resident billionaires, India with 119 such individuals was named among the top three countries globally, after the U.S. and China.
A billionaire is defined as an individual with net assets of $1 billion or more.
Global wealth migration is accelerating and around 95,000 millionaires (HNWIs) migrated in 2017, compared to 82,000 in 2016 and 64,000 in 2015, the report noted.
–PTI