Mumbai is Asia’s new billionaire capital

The city may have been the setting and backdrop for the 2008 Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire, but don’t let Mumbai fool you.

India’s financial capital has emerged as home to the most number of billionaires in Asia, surpassing Beijing, a report said on March 26.

According to the Hurun Global Rich List, Mumbai is home to 92 billionaires, compared with Beijing’s 91.

The Shanghai-based Hurun Research Institute (HRI) also said Mumbai is third on the overall list, after New York (119) and London (97).

There are now more billionaires in Mumbai’s 603 sq km than in Beijing’s 16,000 sq km.

Mumbai has overtaken China’s political and cultural capital because of the 26 new billionaires it added during the past year. Beijing, in the same time, has seen 18 billionaires drop out of the list on a net basis.

The Indian city’s total billionaire wealth stands at US$445 billion ($600 billion), with a 47 per cent increase from the previous year, while Beijing’s total billionaire wealth amounts to US$265 billion, a 28 per cent decrease.

Mumbai’s wealth sectors include energy and pharmaceuticals, with billionaires like Mukesh Ambani making significant gains. Real estate player Mangal Prabhat Lodha and family was Mumbai’s biggest wealth gainer in percentage terms – 116 per cent.

Ambani has US$115 billion in assets, followed by Gautam Adani with US$86 billion, reported The Times of India.

India last year added 94 people to its list of 271 billionaires, the report stated. The country now has the highest number of billionaires outside the US.

According to media reports, Mr Rupert Hoogewerf, the chairman and chief researcher of HRI, said that the increase is evidence of the rising confidence in the Indian economy.

The aggregate wealth of billionaires in India is an astounding US$1 trillion, which represents 7 per cent of the world’s billionaire wealth and highlights the country’s significant economic sway.

China tops the overall list with 814 billionaires, but its number has shrunk by 155 from 2022 as the country’s real estate and renewable energy sectors struggled to grow, and its stock markets remained weak.

The US added 109 to take second place with a total of 800 billionaires.

Foreign businesses’ direct investment into China last year increased by the lowest amount since the early 1990s, highlighting Beijing’s challenges to spur its economy. It also has to contend with a steadily accelerating outflow of manufacturing as Apple and other American brands begin to position new capacity in countries from India to South-east Asia to mitigate risks from US-China tensions.

Mumbai’s population stands at around 21 million. With a median income of about Rs20,000 a month ($323) or around Rs240,000 a year, these astronomical number of billions clearly underscores the salient income gap between the richest and the poorest in the country.

The backdrop for the Slumdog Millionaire movie, about a teenager from the slums whose memories of childhood aid him with the questions on a million-dollar game show, Mumbai also depicts a parallel universe.

The city has the highest number of high net worth individuals (those with assets over US$1 million) in the country. It is the financial centre of India and home to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the 10th largest stock exchange in the world.

Mumbai’s wealthy neighbourhoods are unique compared to the rest of the world in that there are sections of extreme poverty located within and around it. More than 60 per cent of the population live in slums.

Ambani’s 400,000 sq ft, 27-storey house, for instance, is the world’s second-most expensive home after Buckingham Palace. It is situated right next to the Golibar slum in central Mumbai.

On the global rich list, Indian billionaires have seen a slight drop in world ranking. Mukesh Ambani maintains his stronghold at 10th position. Gautam Adani’s remarkable surge in wealth propelled him eight positions to rank 15th globally.

Indo-Asian News Service