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Investment-of-Passion Dollars, 2007 (by region): This graphic shows “investments of passion” - spending on racehorses, art or football teams. Most money is pumped into “luxury collectibles” such as cars, boats and jets. Art collections come second,followed by jewellery, gems and watches; luxury travel; luxury consumables such as perfume and clothes; fitness clubs and health farms; and “other collectibles” including coins, wine and antiques.

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Allocation of financial assets, 2005-2009 (by category): Green investing has become widely popular across the world in recent years, through an array of vehicles such as mutual funds or alternative investments. The total investm...

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Investment-of-Passion Dollars, 2007 (by region): This graphic shows “investments of passion” - spending on racehorses, art or football teams. Most money is pumped into “luxury collectibles” such as cars, boats and jets. Art collections come second,followed by jewellery, gems and watches; luxury travel; luxury consumables such as perfume and clothes; fitness clubs and health farms; and “other collectibles” including coins, wine and antiques.

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Allocation of financial assets, 2005-2009 (by category): Green investing has become widely popular across the world in recent years, through an array of vehicles such as mutual funds or alternative investments. The total investment in clean technology, for example, grew to $117bn last year, up 41% from 2005, with wind and solar investments particularly strong. The Middle East and Europe had the most environmentally attuned investors.

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Wealth distribution, 2005-2007: (by region) Thanks to booming emerging markets like China, Russia and India, the wealth of the world’s richest people climbed by 9.4% to $40.7 trillion in 2007.

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Geographic distribution of dollar millionaires, 2007 (by region): In the UK, the number of dollar millionaires rose by 2.1% to 495,000, driven mainly by strong economic growth of 3.2%. That’s much less than the 8.1% rise recorded in 2006 but better than the even lower growth seen in France and Germany last year. The number of people worth at least $30m grew by 8% to just over 103,000 across the world, despite the credit crunch.

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Population growth, 2006-2007 (by market): India leads the way for the boom in millionaires closely followed by China: there were 23% more dollar millionaires in India in 2007 than the previous year, and 20% more in China. Brazil was third with a 19% increase in millionaires.

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Financial Wealth Forecast, 2005-2012 (by region): Despite mounting uncertainty surrounding the prospects for the world economy, Merrill Lynch believes that emerging markets will sustain high levels of growth. It predicts global wealth will grow by 7.7% a year and reach $59.1 trillion by 2012. It singles out two main hurdles to the global economy: a slowdown in growth in mature markets and a hig...

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Population growth, 2006-2007 (by market): India leads the way for the boom in millionaires closely followed by China: there were 23% more dollar millionaires in India in 2007 than the previous year, and 20% more in China. Brazil was third with a 19% increase in millionaires.

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Financial Wealth Forecast, 2005-2012 (by region): Despite mounting uncertainty surrounding the prospects for the world economy, Merrill Lynch believes that emerging markets will sustain high levels of growth. It predicts global wealth will grow by 7.7% a year and reach $59.1 trillion by 2012. It singles out two main hurdles to the global economy: a slowdown in growth in mature markets and a high risk of inflation in emerging markets.

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Geographic distribution of financial assets, 2006-2009 (by region): The proportion of assets held in the US is still the largest but has slid in recent years, from 43% in 2006 to 42% in 2007 and is forecast to fall to 39% by 2009. Europe is steady at 25% while the Middle East has gone from 2% in 2006 to 3% last year and is expected to reach 4% by 2009. Africa’s share of financial assets has edged down to 1% from 2% in 2006 but is seen rising to 3% next year.