Number of millionaires in world falls in 2012 - Asia bucks trend. - According to the annual global wealth report published by Crédit Suisse, the number of millionaires fell by more than one million between 2011 and 2012, due to the economic and financial crisis. There are now 28.6 million people whose wealth is worth more than $1 million. On the other hand, the value of their assets has fallen slightly (-2%) to $87,300 billion. This fall is much less than for households as a whole, which experienced a -5.2% fall to $223,000 billion (especially in Europe, with a cumulative loss in wealth of $10.9 billion and where European households are the biggest losers following the fall in value of the euro compared to the dollar). This trend, however, is not expected to last. Over the next five years, the world is expected to experience a 50% increase in the number of millionaires. There will therefore be 46.5 million people owning fortunes worth more than $1 million, a 62% increase compared to the level in 2012. Most millionaires are located in the United States: there are 11 million (+ 962,000 over a year), and the number is expected to reach 16.9 million in 2017, 53% more than now. Overall, Asia (excluding Japan) is becoming more powerful. There are therefore now 5.7 million millionaires in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding China and India). Japan is still registering a significant number of millionaires, with almost 3.6 million (+460,000). China is expected to see the number of millionaires there double over the next five years to almost 2 million. The number of Chinese counted among the superrich in the world (with wealth worth more than $50 million) now stands at 5.6%, with 4,700. In Europe, millionaires are getting scarcer, with 1.8 million fewer than a year ago. Italy and France are the two countries where the number of millionaires has fallen sharpest: 74,000 for Italy, where the number of millionaires now stands at almost 1.2 million and 322,000 fewer in France, where the figure now stands at 2.3 million. Germany also experienced a fall, with 290,000 fewer millionaires and where the figure now stands at 1.5 million. Crédit Suisse also analysed the source of these huge fortunes. Contrary to what is usually thought, inheritance is not the usual route, and out of the 1,226 millionaires surveyed by Forbes in 2012, 69% of them earned their wealth themselves. This is also the general rule in a lot of developing countries. In China, Russia and Eastern European countries, the number of millionaires stands at 209; but only two of them obtained their wealth from inheritance. Crédit Suisse does not exclusively focus on the superrich but also on the 4.6 billion people in the world and classifies countries on the basis of the average wealth of their nationals. In this respect, Switzerland is at the top of the table, with average wealth held by its citizens begin valued at €468,000, followed by Australia (€354,000), Norway (€325,000), Luxembourg (€277,000), Japan (€269,000), France (€265 000) and the US (€262,000). Although the spiralling number of millionaires in several emerging countries like Brazil has come to a halt, the trend in this increase and a shift of global wealth to these countries will continue over the next five years, according to Crédit Suisse. Overall, the number of millionaires in Brazil, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Poland, Russia and the African continent will continue to double or increase even more over the next five years, according to the Swiss bank. The number of millionaires is also expected to increase again in Europe (+67 %) primarily because of the rises expected in Germany (+75 %) and the United Kingdom (+69 %). France is expected to remain in third place in the global league table of millionaires, behind the US and Japan, with expected growth of +50% in 2017. (IL/transl.fl)