India’s wealth triples in last decade; but China far ahead

Total wealth in India has tripled over the past decade to $3.5 trillion and could further increase to $6.4 trillion by 2015, says a report on global wealth by investment bank Credit Suisse.

Relative to the rest of the world, the distribution of wealth in India is heavily skewed, with the proportion of adults having wealth below $1,000 roughly double the global average, says the report.

At the other end of the scale, a very small proportion of the adult population (0.4 per cent) owns more than $100,000 on average. ''However, this group has been increasing fairly quickly in recent years and the rate of growth is expected to rise in future if India's economy continues on its current trend,'' it said.

India's economy has grown at an average 8 per cent over the past four years, and is estimated to grow 8.5 per cent this fiscal, according to RBI estimates. From a macro perspective, the CS report has found that the global wealth currently held by 4.4 billion adults has increased 72 per cent since 2000 to reach $195 trillion.

The report defines wealth as value of financial assets and non-financial assets (mainly real estate) minus household debt.

The bank expects the global wealth to grow 61 per cent to $315 trillion by 2015, driven by robust economic expansion in emerging markets. The middle segment of the wealth pyramid is composed of one billion individuals who are located in the fastest-growing economies of the world and who hold one-sixth or $32 trillion of global wealth.