Kenya has been grouped among countries that are set to produce new millionaires at the highest rate in the next five years.
The country is now ranked sixth among top global cities and third in Africa after Nigeria and Egypt.
Global research firm Wealth-X, which tracks affluence trends across the world, estimates that Kenya’s millionaires will increase at a rate of 9.8 percent per annum for the next five years.
Wealth-X puts the country in a special league of top 10 economies in the world where new high net worth (HNW) individuals will be produced faster than the overall economic expansion trends.
The report regards HNW individuals as people with a net worth of between $1 million (Sh101.74 million) and $30 million (Sh3.1 billion).
The projected millionaire growth pace is the same as that of the world’s second-largest economy, China, which is tied with Kenya at number six globally.
According to Wealth-X estimates, the number of individuals in the HNW bracket totaled 22.4 million in 2018, with a combined net worth of $61.3 trillion.
The ranking took into account current wealth levels, population growth estimates and anticipated future investment opportunities.
The report supports the findings in Wealth-X’s World Ultra Wealth Report 2018 that also found that the number of Kenya’s ultra-rich grew by 11.7 percent in 2017, ahead of India, Hong Kong and the United States.
It classifies the ultra-rich as people with a net worth of more than Sh3.1 billion.
Realtor Knight Frank also published a report showing that Kenya created 180 new dollar millionaires in 2017, increasing the number of persons with a net worth of more than Sh500 million to 1,290.
Most economic analysts have projected the Kenyan economy to grow at between 5.5 to 6 percent this year driven by agriculture, manufacturing and the service sectors.