Rich Chinese may expand 17 pct to 12 million

The number of Chinese consumers with investable assets of between US$100,000 and US$1 million may jump 17.2 percent from a year ago to 12 million by the end of this year, a Forbes report said yesterday.

The average amount of investable assets of this mass affluent group was 1.33 million yuan, and their share in the overall private assets rose from 15.5 percent in 2010 to 16.4 percent in 2012, the report said.

The total private investable capital of Chinese citizens grew 13.7 percent annually last year to 83.1 trillion yuan (US$13.2 trillion) and may reach 93.7 trillion yuan by the end of this year, according to the report which is compiled from Forbes China's research and the result of interviews with 1,196 respondents.

Those born between 1960 and 1989 made up 81 percent of the total number of the mass affluent group, with 55 percent of them being male. More than two-thirds of them have college or master degree and 88 percent of the mass affluent class have made investment as they seek to grow their assets.

The report showed that nearly 90 percent of the respondents favor low risk and stable returns on their capital investment, with fixed-income financial products and real estate as the preferred investment options.

The Forbes report revealed that only 13 percent of the mass affluent group have invested overseas contrary to previous studies by the Hurun Research Institute which showed over a third of China's high-net-worth individuals have done so.

A fifth of them plan to emigrate with 2.6 percent already foreign residents, and three quarters saying they would send their children overseas for education, the Forbes report said.