Millionaires club expands in China

The global economic downturn has not affected the personal wealth of the rich in China that continued to expand this year and also opened up more opportunities for private bankers, said a recent study.

The number of millionaires with personal holdings in excess of $1 million is expected to cross 450,000 by the end of the year, with assets under management hitting $1.73 trillion, surpassing the country's pre-crisis levels, said the report released by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) yesterday.

That compared with a prolonged recovery in the global wealth market, with BCG predicting that a return to 2007 levels globally would take at least four years. Global wealth suffered the first decline in eight years in 2008, dropping 11.7 percent to $92.4 trillion.