It’s official. According to this AsiaOne story, the annual Merrill Lynch and Capgemini World Wealth Report has reported that the number of Singapore millionaires has grown by an impressive 21.2 per cent last year, or some 11,660 new millionaires. Singapore saw the fastest growth in high net-worth individuals across the world, and even beat India which saw a 20.5% growth. This brings the total millionaires in our dear island state to some 66,660 – this constitutes around 1.5% of our population, so three out of every 200 people here are millionaries.
Many of them have attained their newly-minted status due to the burgeoning stock market in Singapore, as well as the incredibly heated property market which has seen many people become instant millionaries from the en bloc craze. Some of them are senior management executives with large remuneration packages.
If most of these new millionaires are stock market and property investors or senior C-level executives, my question is: Where are our new small business success stories?
If they’ve somehow disappeared, I think we have some cause for concern.
