2010-09-30 10:50

BEIJING - China's rich are investing more in equities than their Asian peers on average, with property purchases also being popular targets during the previous year, wealth manager Merrill Lynch and consulting firm Capgemini said in a report released Tuesday.

According to the Asia-Pacific Wealth Report 2010, rich Chinese who have invested in real estate soared from 18 percent in 2008 to 27 percent last year, the fastest pace of growth in the Asia region.

The report also revealed that 42 percent of China's wealthy, who have set aside at least $1 million for investment purposes, made equities the largest part of their portfolio in 2009, up 13 percentage points year-on-year, and much higher than the 27 percent on average for the region's rich.

The report has estimated that 39 percent of the wealthy would continue to allocate a large portion of their investment portfolios for stock market buys in 2011.

China's rich population, the second largest in Asia following Japan's, grew 31 percent last year to 477,000. Their total assets increased 40.4 percent to $2.35 trillion.

"The number of rich people in China grew the fastest in Asia. It will continue to maintain its strong growth momentum," Wilson So, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Asia-Pacific representative, said.

The Asia-Pacific region has recovered faster from the global financial crisis. The number of Asia's rich touched 3 million in 2009, catching up with peers in Europe for the first time. The assets of the Asian rich have in fact surpassed those held by Europeans, the report showed.

According to the Forbes 2010 ranking of the world's billionaires in March, 64 Chinese with individual assets topping $1 billion have entered the super-rich club, up from 28 people last year. China has become number two on that list just after the United States.

Rupert Hoogewerf, who tracks China's wealthy, said that while it took people in other countries a decade to go from a net wealth of 100 million yuan ($14.95 million) to 1 billion yuan, in China it just took three years.