Chinese billionaires have seen their fortunes wane “after a decade of significant growth”, according to a UBS study released Thursday.
Their estimated fortune declined by 19.9% to $2 trillion between the end of March 2021 and the end of March 2022, according to the Swiss bank. The number of Chinese billionaires has also decreased, with 86 billionaires fewer, for a total of 540 billionaires.
Politics zero covid China’s growth has slowed after several years of strong growth, the study points out.
The wealth of billionaires in Eastern Europe fell by 34.7% between the end of March 2021 and the end of March 2022, to 455 billion dollars (431 billion euros), according to this study.
The Russian billionaires have seen their fortunes melt by more than 43.5%, according to the bank, which estimates their cumulative assets at 326.9 billion dollars over the same period.
The number of billionaires in the country has also decreased significantly. Russia had only 83 billionaires left at the end of March 2022, according to the bank’s count, 34 less than at the end of March 2021.
India, on the other hand, which has risen to the rank of fifth world power, saw the emergence of 26 new billionaires, bringing their number to 166 with a total fortune valued at 749.8 billion dollars, up 25.7% between the end of March 2021 and end of March 2022.
In the United States, where a third of the world’s billionaires are concentrated, their cumulative wealth increased by 6.9% to 4,700 billion dollars, while it stagnated in Western Europe at 2,300 billion dollars on the same period.
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In total, the study counted 2,668 billionaires worldwide at the end of March 2022, or 87 less than a year earlier.
In this year of exceptional volatility, their number is likely to have fallen since the end of March 2022, given the sharp fall in the financial markets since the end of March, underlines the study.
The Swiss bank, which is one of the largest wealth managers in the world, has been regularly taking stock of the assets of the very rich since 2015.