This is Bob Doughty with the VOA Special English EconomicsReport.

Two-thousand-three was a good year for wealthy people around theworld.

Merrill Lynch and Capgemini have released their yearly WorldWealth Report. Merrill Lynch is an American financial servicescompany. Capgemini is a French company that gives business advice.

Seven-point-seven million people worldwide had one milliondollars or more in wealth at the end of last year. The report saysthe number grew by seven and a half percent from two-thousand two.That year there were not many new millionaires.

But last year the investments of the wealthy did well. Theirwealth increased by almost eight percent. China, India, Spain andthe United States were high performers in the creation of wealth.

Wealthy people around the world bought more stock last year. Thereport shows that their stock holdings as a share of their wealthincreased from twenty percent to thirty-five percent.

Last year, an economist at the Federal Reserve Board comparedstock ownership rates among Americans. That report said thewealthiest one percent owned more than half of all stock held byindividuals or families as of two-thousand-one. The percentage waseven higher for government-secured investments in bonds. The top onepercent owned sixty-four percent of the bonds.

Stocks and bonds are called liquid assets, just like money in thebank. Houses are less easy to sell. So the World Wealth Report doesnot include the value of a personal home in its measure of wealth.

Last year, the number of millionaires increased at the highestrates in Africa, North America and the Asia-Pacific areas. TheUnited States had the largest increase in numbers of any country.

But Europe with its larger population continued to have the mostmillionaires, followed by North America. Both areas have over twomillion millionaires.

The study says most very wealthy people are at or near retirementage. Seventy percent are over fifty-five years old.

All together, high-worth individuals hadtwenty-nine-million-million dollars in wealth last year. The WorldWealth Report says that is expected to reach forty-million-milliondollars by two-thousand-eight.

And, the richest of the rich are doing the best of all. Thereport says a very small but fast growing group of seventy thousandpeople are worth more than thirty million dollars.

This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by MarioRitter. This is Bob Doughty.