China’s population is so large and its economy growing so quickly that the Chinese are set to take over second place in the league table of the world’s wealthy people in the next decade.

Research published this week by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-Wider) showed that an adult needed to own $61,000 of net assets to be in the richest 10 per cent of the world’s wealth distribution and that in 2000, Chinese people represented less than 1-in-100 of this group.