While it’s usually an Indian trademark story of poverty and lack of jobs, a new wealth report has shown a whopping increase of 211% in India’s wealth during last 15 years, leaving behind big economies like US, UK, Japan, France, Germany and Brazil.
The nation of 1.25 billion souls is just behind, Indonesia, China, Russia and Australia in terms of wealth increase.
Indonesia’s wealth increased by 362% while China saw an increase of 341%, Russia 253% and Australia 248%. In case of Japan wealth increased by a modest 39%, while as it increased by 41% for the US and 58% for the UK.
The report by New World Wealth said India’s total individual wealth stood at $3,492 billion, while the United States, which topped the list, had a total individual wealth of $48,734 billion.
So why is India poor?
The catch lies in the fact that report has been calculated on the premise of “Total individual wealth” which means the personal wealth held by all the individuals in the country including all property, cash, equities and business interests.
So higher the population, higher the wealth. What the report fails to address is the uneven concentration of the wealth with a small percentage of total population.
Recently, a report released by Credit Suisse, a global brokerage firm, said 1% of India’s richest own 53% of the country’s wealth, which is up from 36.8% in 2000.
Moreover, top 5% of the richest account for 68.6% of the India’s wealth, while as top 10% own 76.3%, which precisely means that 90% of India’s population own the meager 25% of the rest of wealth.
The report also reveals wealth per capita or average wealth per person increased from $900 in 2000 to $2,800 in 2015.
India is among the top 10 nations in terms of total private wealth held, but at the bottom in terms of per capita riches, the report said.
On per capita basis, India was last among the 20 countries, as the average wealth per person stood at $2,800, while that of Switzerland, which topped the ranking, stood at $285,100.
According to the New World Wealth’s report, Switzerland was followed by Australia ($204400), US ($150600) and UK ($147600) in terms of per capita wealth.
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