Mumbai India's richest city, 2 Kolkata localities among most affluent: New World Wealth report

NEW DELHI: Two Kolkata localities - Ballygunge and Alipore have emerged as among the most affluent in India.
The New World Wealth report which was announced on Tuesday and looked at wealth migration trends in 2016 have done an extensive study of Indian cities and found that the total wealth held in Kolkata amounts to nearly $290 billion.
The organisation that has compiled the data – New World Wealth in South Africa revealed to TOI that Kolkata has more millionaires than Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai or Gurgaon.
While the City of Joy is home to 9600 millionaires, Hyderabad boasts of 9000 such high net worth individuals, Bangalore 7700, Pune 4500, Gurgaon 4000 and Chennai 6600 millionaires.
However when it comes to billionaires, the city falls behind as it records only four such individuals along with Chennai.
Bangalore on the other hand has eight billionaires, Hyderabad six and Pune five.
Gurgaon has only two billionaires.
Bangalore’s total wealth is also higher than Kolkata - $320 billion while Hyderabad has $310 billion.
The total wealth held in Pune has been found to be $180 billion while that in Chennai is $150 billion. The wealth in Gurgaon is around $110 billion.
“Kolkata is the main commercial hub of East India. The major industries in the city include manufacturing, basic materials, pharmaceuticals and food processing,” the report says.
Mumbai still continues to be India’s richest city with its total wealth expected to be around $820 billion. The city is home to 46,000 millionaires and 28 billionaires.
Delhi stands second with wealth worth $450 billion. It is also home to 23,000 millionaires and 18 billionaires.
Officials who collated the data however allayed fears of wealth migration from India and told TOI in an interview “The outflow of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) from India is not particularly concerning as India is still producing far more new millionaires than they are losing. Also, once the standard of living in India improves, we expect several wealthy people to move back”.
India’s total wealth has been pinned at $6.2 trillion (as of December 2016). It is home to 264,000 millionaires and 95 billionaires in total.
Interestingly Gujarati cities Surat, Vadodra and Ahmedabad have emerged as the top cities of growth in wealth.
Surat is now the fastest growing city in India (in terms of GDP growth) followed by Ahmedabad which the report says is home to the major sectors like basic materials (cotton), manufacturing (textiles, automobiles), IT and healthcare (pharmaceuticals).
The other cities which recorded the highest GDP growth since 2015 are Goa which is also home to a large number of wealthy retirees, Chandigarh and Jaipur.
An internal assessment of India’s richest suburbs shows that the most amount of wealth in Mumbai is held with people living in Bandra, Juhu, Goregaon, Parel, Worli and Palm Beach Road. In Delhi, the most expensive suburbs are Westend Greens, Dera Mandi, Greater Kailash and Lutyens.
Hyderabad’s Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills are right on top of the wealth curve while for Bangalore it is Indiranagar and Sadashivanagar.
Chennai’s Boat Club Road and Poes Garden while Gurgaon’s Golf Course Road are the most expensive localities of the respective cities.
India now the sixth richest country in the world worth $6200 billion - much richer that European giants like France and Italy and also Australia and Canada.
India recorded the second highest growth in overall wealth between the years 2015-16 - almost 12% while China’s wealth during this time increased by 10%, US 5% and Japan 6%.
UK’s wealth growth fell by 5%, France’s fell by 10, Italy’s by 10% and Germany by 6%.
Globally, as many as 82,000 millionaires (HNWIs) migrated in 2016, compared to just 64,000 in 2015 with Australia becoming the biggest gainers.
An estimated 11,000 millionaires moved to Australia in 2016 – the highest such inflow in any country compared to 10,000 that moved to the US and 3,000 that moved to the UK.
This is the second straight year that Australia has benefitted from wealth migration. Experts say the main reason for this could be that Australia has one of the best healthcare systems in the world. In the UK, the NHS is deteriorating, whilst in the US the mandated healthcare insurance (Affordable Care Act enacted in 2010) has not turned out well for wealthy and middle class patients.
Australia’s location makes it a good base for doing business in emerging Asian countries such as China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and India.
The report says “Australia is also relatively immune to the turmoil in the Middle East and the related refugee crisis in Europe. Australia is a good base for wealthy retired yacht owners who wish to sail the South Pacific Islands while the country also has lower inheritance taxes than the US and much lower inheritance taxes than the UK”.
France was one of the biggest losers with recent terrorist attacks and political turmoil. The large outflow of millionaires from France (over 12,000 millionaires is 2016) is notable – France is being heavily impacted by rising religious tensions between Christians and Muslims, especially in urban areas.
“We expect that millionaire migration away from France will accelerate over the next decade as these tensions escalate. In our view, other European countries where religious tensions are starting to emerge such as Belgium, Germany, Austria, the UK, Holland and Sweden will also be negatively affected in the near future. Of further concern, since 2000, France has experienced a net outflow of over 60,000 millionaires. Around 6,000 left in 2014, 10,000 left in 2015 and 12,000 left in 2016. This shows that wealth migration away from the country is accelerating,” the report says.