(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Mohammad Shoeb / The Peninsula
Qatar recorded the highest wealth per adult of $102,517 in mid-2017 in the Middle East and North African (Mena) region.
Qatar was closely followed by Kuwait with $97, 300 wealth per adult. However, while Kuwait saw its wealth per adult increase marginally by 1.4 percent, Qatar witnessed a marginal drop of 0.2 percent from mid-last year, according to the latest Global Wealth Report 2017 published by Credit Suisse Research Institute.
In the Mena region wealth per adult net of debt increased by 1.9 percent compared to the global average 6.4 percent, noted the report.
The UAE placed third in the region with wealth per adult of $78,800, grew by 1.2 percent since last year. Wealth per adult in Bahrain saw a steady increase of 2.7 percent from mid last year to $30, 800. Wealth per adult in Saudi Arabia grew by 2.8 percent touching $35, 000, while Egypt's wealth per adult saw a massive drop of 50.2 percent touching $3,200 pulled down by a drop in value of the Egyptian pound against the dollar.
Kuwait and Qatar's total wealth (net of household wealth) is estimated to be $292bn and $218bn, respectively. Total wealth in the Mena region grew by $2.22 trillion (to be exact $2,221bn), or 156 percent, since 2000, above the global average of 140 percent.
In the next five years household net wealth in the Mena region is expected to increase by a further 52 percent, or nearly 8.8 percent annually.
Over the last 10 years from the onset of the global financial crisis, global wealth has grown by 30 percent, according to Credit Suisse Report. In the 12 months to mid-2017, global wealth grew at a faster pace than in recent years, with mean wealth per adult reaching a new record high.
According to the eighth edition of the Report, in the year to mid-2017, total global wealth rose at a rate of 6.4 percent, the fastest pace since 2012 and reached $280 trillion, a gain of $16.7 trillion.
This reflected widespread gains in equity markets matched by similar rises in non-financial assets, which moved above the pre-crisis year 2007's level for the first time this year. Wealth growth also outpaced population growth, so that global mean wealth per adult grew by 4.9 percent and reached a new record high of $56,540 per adult.
Urs Rohner, Chairman of the Credit Suisse Research Institute and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse Group, said: 'A decade since the start of the global financial crisis, we see a significant increase in wealth across all regions of the world. In our home market, Switzerland, wealth per adult has increased by more than 40 percent during this period and continues to lead the global rankings. In this year's edition of the annual Report, we explore the wealth prospects of the Millennial generation, which emerges from a more challenging period than its predecessors.
The US continued its unbroken spell of gains since the financial crisis, bolstered by strong market conditions. It added $8.5 trillion to the stock of global wealth, which is half of the wealth generated globally over the last 12 months to mid-2017.
Switzerland once again ranked as the global leader in terms of both average and median wealth per adult in 2017. Since the turn of the century, wealth per adult in Switzerland has risen by 130 percent to $537,600, largely associated with the appreciation of the Swiss franc against the US dollar between 2001 and 2013.
The top ten in the wealth-per-adult league in 2017 also include five other European countries, which included: Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the UK and France.
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