Hong Kong has fallen behind rival Singapore in a ranking of the world’s wealthiest cities, a new survey shows.
The number of US dollar millionaires in Hong Kong dropped 27% to 129,500 between 2012 and 2022, while the figure in the city-state grew 40% to 240,100, according to a list published by the investment migration company Henley & Partners.
Hong Kong now ranks seventh globally, two spots below Singapore. It ranked fourth in 2012, said the report, produced in partnership with the wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth.
Beijing’s tightening grip on Hong Kong has driven an exodus of wealth and a boom in family offices to other financial hubs. While the number of such investment firms for the super-rich almost doubled between 2012 and 2020 in Singapore, Hong Kong has been playing catch-up and introduced tax concessions last month.
New York City is home to the most people with investable wealth of at least $1 million, with the Bay Area (San Francisco and Silicon Valley) and Los Angeles also among the top spots, the Henley report shows. The Bay Area has more billionaires — 63 — than any other location in the world.
London dropped to fourth in the table, while Tokyo fell to second place.
Juerg Steffen, Henley & Partners’ chief executive officer, said most of the cities that topped the list are in countries that have programmes in place to help with the migration of funds and encourage foreign direct investments in exchange for residence or citizenship rights.
“Being able to relocate yourself, your family, or your business to a more favourable city or have the option to choose between multiple different residences across the world is an increasingly important aspect of international wealth and legacy planning for private clients,” Steffen said.
The US and China also dominate the Top 10 list of fastest growing cities when it comes to resident high net worth individuals (HNWI) over the past decade. One of China’s most enduringly popular holiday spots, Hangzhou, tops the charts in this respect with millionaire growth of 105% between 2012 and 2022. The high-tech capital, Shenzhen, and the port city of Guangzhou also enjoyed significant HNWI expansion over the past decade, at 98% and 86%, respectively.
The three fastest growing millionaire hotspots in the US are Austin (102% growth in resident HNWIs), West Palm Beach (90%) and Scottsdale (88%).
India has two cities in the Top 10 for growth — Bengaluru (88%) and Hyderabad (78%) — and the final two places go to the UAE cultural hub Sharjah (84%) and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam (82%), which is fast emerging as Asia’s next big wealth hub.