China has shone in the latest list of the world's richest cities, thanks to the rapidly accumulated personal wealth in the country.
According to the World's Wealthiest Cities list released by the South African market consultancy New World Wealth earlier this month, a total of three Chinese cities entered the top 10－Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
The market research firm gauges the total amount of private wealth based on property, cash, equities and business interests. Government funds are excluded from the figures.
Beijing came fifth on the list with a total wealth of $2.2 trillion, which was the highest ranking among all the nominated Chinese cities.
Shanghai caught up with Beijing to arrive at sixth place with a total private wealth reaching $2 trillion. Dislodged by Los Angeles, Hong Kong took eighth place on the list with a total wealth of $1.3 trillion.
New York City topped the list with total wealth of $3 trillion. The top 15 cities globally hold $24 trillion in wealth, which is about 11 percent of the world's total private wealth.
San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai, Mumbai and Sydney have shown the fastest growth rates of wealth in the past decade, according to New World Wealth. Mumbai is expected to be the city with the highest rate of growth in the next 10 years.
New World Wealth analysts singled out two Chinese cities to watch. They stressed that Shenzhen just missed the top 15 list with a total wealth of $770 billion. Pointing out that the city is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies, the South African market research firm also acknowledged Shenzhen as the high-tech capital of China.
Besides, New World Wealth rated Hangzhou－the home to e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd－as the fastest growing city in China in terms of wealth growth, despite the fact that the total private wealth only came at $425 billion this time.
Although there are indications showing that economic growth is slowing in China, the sheer scale of the economy, coupled with strong growth in the local high-tech, media, entertainment and healthcare sectors, will deliver 140 percent annual growth among ultra-wealthy populations in the upcoming few years, New World Wealth forecasts.
