Over the last year, the wealth of 41 Indian billionaires fell by more than a billion dollars, bringing the total loss to $122.7 billion, according to the M3M Hurun Global Rich List 2023 published Wednesday.
According to the report, the world lost five billionaires every week in 2022, leading to a depletion of around 10 per cent of global wealth to roughly $13.7 trillion. India was placed third, next to China and the United States, whose respective 178 and 123 billionaires lost more than $1 billion year-over-year. For China, the total loss of wealth was $482.2 billion, compared to $603.7 billion for the USA. (ALSO READ: China tops list of ‘most billionaires’, US next; India third)
Hindustan Times spoke to Anas Rahman Junaid, managing director and chief researcher, Hurun India to understand why India suffered one of the biggest blows?
The state of the world, according to Junaid, has a major impact on the loss of the country’s wealth. Interest rate hikes, the US dollar’s 12% appreciation against the Indian rupee, the burst of a Covid-driven tech bubble, and the ongoing effects of the Russia-Ukraine war, all had an impact on Indian businesses, according to him.
“India is one of the top 3 billionaire producing countries in the world, global headwind impact have naturally trickled down to the country,” he added.
The lead researcher further estimated that if the inflation cycle is contained and if war ends, the wealth creation can accelerate to gain lost ground.
“After the series of bank failures such as the SVB, Credit Suisse, etc., we are hoping that the regulators (such as the Fed) will take cognisance that interest rate hikes without a safety net to combat inflation will have serious ‘side effects’,” he said.
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India ranks sixth in terms of billionaires who have added $1 billion or more in the last year.
India, which added 16 billionaires this year, is now in third place, easily ahead of Italy, which added 9 billionaires this year. The richest new Indian entrant, Rekha Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, widow of Indian stock market giant Rakesh Jhunjhunwala who died last year, ranks first among the top 16 new Indian entrants in the poll.