Zambian dollar millionaires on increase

A JOHANNESBURG-BASED research company, New World Wealth (NWW), has predicted that the number of dollar millionaires in Zambia will increase to about 10,000 by 2024.

In a forecast report issued recently, the NWW also compares Zambia with other African countries such as Mozambique and Ivory Coast, which have similar trends.
The research company has attributed this to a mix of construction, financial services and property developments that are expected to boost the ranks of the rich in Africa.

“The number of people with net assets, excluding their primary residence, of more than US$1 million will surge by 120 percent in Mozambique by 2024 to 2,200. The number of millionaires in Ivory Coast will jump from 109 percent to 4,800, while those in Zambia will double,” the company forecasted.

It stated that Mozambique is expected to add dollar millionaires at the fastest rate in Africa over the next decade, followed by Ivory Coast and Zambia.
The report added that high net worth individual numbers are expected to rise by 45 percent over the next 10 years, reaching approximately 234,000.

“Zambia’s rich are expected to benefit from real estate development, while Mozambique’s economy is being boosted by the biggest natural gas, Ivory Coast is recovering from a civil war.
“The countries will take over from oil producers, Angola and Ghana, where the number of millionaires rose more than fivefold between 2000 and 2014,” NWW predicts.
It stated that the number of millionaires in Africa rose to 145 percent compared with a global average of 73 percent between 2000 and 2014.

The NWW also states that while South Africa, with 46,800 millionaires, and Egypt, with 20,200, remain Africa’s biggest wealth centres, growth in the numbers of the rich have been held back by emigration from a stuttering economy in South Africa and instability in Egypt.
The report indicates that South Africa is expected to remain home to most of the continent’s wealthy, with their numbers rising by 40 percent in the next decade to 65,700.