Hong Kong has fallen behind rival Singapore in a ranking of the world’s wealthiest cities, a new survey shows.
The number of US dollar millionaires in Hong Kong dropped 27% to 129,500 between 2012 and 2022, while the figure in the city-state grew 40% to 240,100, according to a list published by the investment migration
company Henley & Partners.
Hong Kong now ranks seventh globally, two spots below Singapore. It ranked fourth in 2012, said the report, produced in partnership with the wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth.
Beijing’s tightening grip on Hong Kong has driven an exodus of wealth and a boom in family offices to other financial hubs. While the number of such investment firms for the super-rich almost doubled between 2012 and 2020 in Singapore, Hong Kong has been playing catch-up and introduced tax concessions last month.
New York City is home to the most people with investable wealth of at least $1 million, with the Bay Area (San Francisco and Silicon Valley) and Los Angeles also among the top spots, the Henley report shows. The Bay Area has more billionaires — 63 — than any other location in the world.
London dropped to fourth in the table, while Tokyo fell to second place.
Juerg Steffen, Henley & Partners’ chief executive officer, said most of the cities that topped the list are in countries that have programmes in place to help with the migration of funds and encourage foreign direct investments in exchange for residence or citizenship rights.
Source: Bloomberg News
