As anyone knows, the UAE is one of the richest countries not only in the middle-east but also in the world that has shown a prominent success in entrepreneurship and other related fields during the last few decades. This success has made it among the top 10 countries in the world that are the most popular destinations with billionaires in order to invest their money or make deals in. The reason why it has gained this rank is that the UAE has 55 billionaires in it controlling $165 billion of wealth, according to the report of Wealth-X Billionaire Census 2019.
The UAE has been known as the 10th biggest market in the world sharing this position with France, as both of them have the same number of billionaires. It should be noticed that UAE has dropped to this position from ninth position. The population of billionaires in the UAE dropped by 11.3 percent, with their wealth falling about 1.6 percent. The ninth position this year belongs to Saudi Arabia that the population of billionaires decreased by 8.1 percent and the wealth dropped by 13.2 percent.
An important point here is that the names of seven Emirati billionaires were brought in Forbes Magazine in its annual list for 2019, that the value of their assets has declined year-on-year, and this matter can be attributed to some reasons. For example, the slowdown in the global economy and also the reduction of property price in the UAE are the most prominent ones. The total reduction of their assets was nearly 18 percent in comparison to last year. However, according to the report of Khaleej Times website, wealth managers have said that the wealth of high net worth individuals and ultra- high net worth individuals with over 30 million in fortune will make progress in the future.
Taimur Khan, research manager at Knight Frank, has said that high net worth individuals and ultra-high net worth individuals are estimated to increase by 18 percent and 20 percent, respectively, in the coming five years. He has also put forward that growth has been seen in both segments by 11 percent and the numbers are expected to increase by 14 percent in terms of the population of millionaires and ultra-high net worth individuals by 15 percent. It also should be considered that equity markets and real estate markets have had strong levels of progress in 2017 contributing greatly to the increases in the segments put forward earlier.
Farzad Billimoria, the head of HSBC private banking –DIFC branch, also believes that the growth of wealth in the UAE has happened due to some reasons. one is geographical advantages of where this country is located and another factor is that the financial infrastructure in the UAE has been very positive making UAE one of the top choices for billionaires.
* some parts of the essay is based on Khaleej Times website
*writer : Maral Aryanpour