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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — In less than five years, millionaires will own nearly half of global private wealth, according to figures from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

In its study, Global Wealth, the firm found that 41% of the world’s wealth were in the hands millionaires — those with more than $1 million in private wealth — in 2014.  It projects that the figure will rise to 46% by 2019.

The total number of millionaire households grew to 17 million in 2014, from 15 million the previous year. The growth was buoyed by solid market performance of existing assets, the study said.

The U.S. had the most number of millionaires in 2014 (seven million), followed by China (four million), which also had the highest number of new millionaires (one million). Japan stood at third with one million millionaire households.

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