The wealthy shift to safer investments

The market jitters from the second half of 2007 snowballing into the current US financial crisis have prompted the wealthy in the Asia-Pacific region to revamp their investment portfolios, shifting from property and equities to deposits and fixed-income securities, says a new Merrill Lynch report.

The report, entitled Asia Pacific Wealth Report, published annually by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini Consulting, also finds that in 2007, China became home to the second largest population, or 14.8 percent, of "high net worth individuals" in the Asia-Pacific region.

Thanks largely to the particularly buoyant property and stock markets, the combined wealth of Chinese high net worth individuals rose 22.5 percent in 2007 to $2.12 trillion.