As global wealth rises, Kenya outranks 52 African countries

Kenya is among the top nations in the world when it comes to growing global wealth markets, a study by New World Wealth published in April 2019 reveals.

Northern neighbour Ethiopia and Indian Ocean’s Mauritius are the only other African countries to outrank Kenya, with the three nations headlining Africa’s representation in the top 10 best performing wealth markets in the world.

Kenya is placed in 8th spot with the New World Wealth survey measuring that over a 10 year period between 2008 and 2018, the nation has grown by 64%.

Mauritius, at a growth of 124%, tops Africa’s representation and is runner up to China in the world list. The Far East nation has grown 130% since 2008.

Ethiopia on the other hand is third in the world and between 2008 and 2018 grew by 102%.

Completing the top 10 behind China, Mauritius and Ethiopia are India (96%), Sri Lanka, Vietnam (94%), Indonesia (71%), Kenya, Philippines (64%) and Korea Republic (63%).

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The list reflects the New World Wealth conclusion that the rise in global wealth has been steered by strong growth in Asia.

“Global wealth has risen by 26% over the past 10 years … assisted by strong wealth growth in Asia,” the survey reads.

According to New World Wealth, global wealth stood at Ksh16.3 quadrillion in 2008 and had risen in 2018 to Ksh20.6 quadrillion.

A quadrillion is a one followed by 15 zeros.

The global wealth figure, when placed in context of Kenya’s national budget remaining constant, is enough to finance the country for around 6,000 years.

It also means that the figure is enough to pay Kenya’s national debt around 4,000 times over.

Meanwhile, the report also showed that countries in the European Union, as well as numerous ones in the Middle East, performed poorly.

Among the 20 worst performing countries are nations such as Russia (-10%), France (-7%) and Egypt (-10%).

To compile the lists, New World Wealth uses models that include statistics from stock market ineach market, property, income, GDP data per capita as well as currency movements among others.

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