全球亿万富豪 亚洲增加最多

Next we turn to some of the world's richest people. Asia is leading the world in the growth of billionaires. Some experts believe that in the next 5 to 10 years the number of Asian billionaires will surpass Europe because of the high-growth opportunities in this part of the world.

Asia is running fast into the world billionaire club.

Wealth X, a financial consultation company, has released a report about the richest people in the world. It finds that Asia is leading all other regions in terms of growth rates for both billionaire population and wealth.

Billionaires in the region grew to 645, with world leading growth rate of over 15 percent.  Their total wealth put together are over 1.68 trillion US dollars, and are increasing at a rate nearly 20 percent faster than the other ultra-rich in any other region in wealth accumulation.

Asia’s future growth as a billionaire hub is mostly attributed to China. In the first quarter of 2015, there was a new billionaire created almost every week in the country. Many believe it is especially significant given that China's economic growth is slowing down.

Although Asia is rapidly catching up with the West in the number and wealth of billionaires, their channels of creating wealth is rather different. Most Asian billionaires gather their fortune from consumer and real-estate sectors, while their US counterparts make their harvest in financial and high-tech industries.

Also, Asia’s billionaires are unique compared to US and European billionaires. They are younger and a significant number of them grew up in poverty. (take grahics) Forbes tells us that the average age of the Asian billionaire is 57 – 10 years younger than its Western counterparts – and 25 percent of them grew up in poverty, compared to the US and Europe with only 8 and 6 percent respectively.

So far, there are 2,473 billionaires in the world, one for every 2.95 million people on the planet. While the number of the world's super-rich is rocketing, so is the gap between the rich and the poor widening in many regions of the world.