By Zaher Bitar / 5 June 2013

The UAE’s household wealth increased by 8.2 per cent in 2012 while the total value registered at $400 billion belonged to 57,000 families across the emirates, according to The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) thirteenth annual global wealth management report, Maintaining Momentum in a Complex World: Global Wealth 2013.

While the report mentioned that 52 per cent of the wealth value are in offshore investments while other countries like Japan Western Europe and north America most of the wealth are invested locally.

The report said that the country has the world’s ninth highest density of millionaires, with 40 out of every 1,000 households (4 per cent) holding private wealth of at least $1 million.

The UAE also ranks fifteenth in the world by ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) households, defined as households with more than $100 million in private wealth, with 3 out of 100,000 households falling into this category

On a regional level, the report shows that private financial wealth in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew to $4.8 trillion in 2012, an increase of 9.1 per cent from $4.4 trillion in 2011. Wealth held in equities in the MEA region grew by 18.3 per cent in 2012, as compared to increases of 9.2 per cent in bonds and 5.2 per cent in cash and deposits.

“Qatar ranks first in the world with the highest density of millionaires, with 14.3 per cent holding private wealth of at least $1 million. Kuwait ranks third with 11.5 per cent, while Bahrain (4.9 per cent) and the UAE (4 per cent) ranks seventh and ninth, respectively,” said Markus Massi, Partner and Managing Director at BCG Middle East.

“The growth of private wealth in the region has been largely driven by a buoyant GCC equity market and an improvement in the global equity markets overall. Additionally, the recovery of the local real estate markets has helped to free up additional liquidity for financial investments. Wealth held in equities saw strong growth in 2012, although individual markets in the GCC region posted sharply different results. The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) Index enjoyed growth of 19.9 per cent and the Abu Dhabi Exchange (ADX) improved by 9.5 per cent, while other GCC exchanges have seen moderate growth (6 per cent for Tadawul) or as low as 2 per cent in the case of the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE),” Massi added.

The Middle East also ranks highly by ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) households, defined as households with more than $100 million in private wealth. Qatar ranks fourth in the world, with 8 out of 100,000 households falling into this category. Kuwait ranks seventh and UAE comes in fifteenth with 7 and 3 households per 100,000 in this segment, respectively.

Globally, private financial wealth grew by 7.8 per cent in 2012 to a total of $135.5 trillion. The rise was stronger than in 2011 and 2010, when global wealth grew by 3.6 per cent and 7.3 per cent, according to the report.