The world has added 412 billionaires — 8 billionaires a week — to take the total number of billionaires to 3,228, says the Hurun Global Rich list.
The report, however, adds that it has probably missed out on one in every two billionaires because of the secrecy and lack of publicly available information.
Forty Indians entered the billionaire’ club in the pandemic-stricken 2020 to take the number to 177 people.
The report compiles individual or family wealth in the year to January 15. It can be noted that the Indian economy is set to contract over 7 per cent because of the impact of the pandemic, which had a debilitating impact on the poor.
The report comes at a time concerns are being raised about a “K-shaped” recovery being underway, where a select few prosper.
Hurun said Indian wealth creation is dominated by cyclical or traditional industries compared to tech-driven wealth creation in the US and China.
“When the tech-driven wealth creation reaches full potential, India could potentially beat USA in terms of the number of billionaires,” he added.
