BEIJING - A recent survey on Chinese millionaires shows that nearly half of them consider emigrating abroad and 14 percent have already emigrated or applied.

Forty-six percent of the 980 respondents said they intended to emigrate in the survey jointly conducted by the Hurun Research Institute and Bank of China from May to September. The survey findings have been published in the Private Banking White Paper 2011.

The survey targeted China's "high net worth individuals" with personal asset above 10 million yuan ($1.58 million) in 18 major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Nanjing, Dalian and Suzhou.

The average age of the respondents was 42, with personal assets worth more than 60 million yuan on average.

According to the survey, one-third of the respondents claimed to have overseas assets, mostly in real estate, accounting for 19 percent of their total investable assets. Moreover, nearly 30 percent of the rest were planning to invest overseas in the next three years.

Half of the respondents said the reason why they invested abroad was to give their children better education opportunities, while one third said the investment was out of emigration considerations.