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    Second-Tier Multimillionaire Growth Leaves Beijing, Shanghai In Dust

    China's first-tier cities may still have the country's most multi-millionaires, but a new study says lower-tier centers like Chongqing are catching up fast.
    Betty ChenAuthor
      Published   in Finance

    Chongqing Tops List With 80 Percent Jump In Ultra-Wealthy#

    Chongqing, which saw an 80 percent rise in its number of multimillionaires in five years.

    When it comes to wealth accumulation in China's cities, Beijing and Shanghai don't come close to Chongqing for the title of the city with the fastest-growing number of multimillionaires in the country. According to a recent WealthInsight report, Chongqing tops this list for the time period from 2007 to 2012, when the second-tier city saw an astounding 80 percent growth in its ultra-affluent population.

    According to the report, Chongqing now has 96 ultra-high-net-worth individuals who hold more than $30 million in assets, but it's far from the only lower-tier city with significant growth numbers. Chengdu and Fuzhou's multimillionaire residents also increased by 60 percent in the same period, with 120 and 67 multimillionaires respectively. Of the top ten fastest-growing cities for multimillionaires, Hangzhou had the most with 563 at the end of 2012, an increase of 57 percent over the five-year time period.

    Even more remarkable is the fact that first-tier Beijing and Shanghai don't even crack the top 10, despite the fact that many Westerners may not have even heard of many Chinese cities other than these two.

    This report shows without a doubt that a sizable part of the country's growing wealth is shifting from established commercial centers to second-tier cities. As a result, the study recommends that private banks and luxury goods companies should begin to target smaller cities like Hangzhou and Wuhan if they haven't already been doing so.

    In terms of the total number of millionaires, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai still lead other Chinese cities, with rankings of 6th, 8th, and 9th, respectively, rounding out the world's top 20. For the world's cities boasting the highest number of ultra-wealthy individuals, Hong Kong made the top five, with a total number of 2,560 multimillionaires. Beijing has 1,318 multimillionaires, placing it in 10th place, and Shanghai sits at 18th place with 1,028.

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