Rich Chinese, a booming generation

　　 Chinanews, Shanghai, February 15 – MasterCard recently released its first report on rich Chinese, including those with an annual income of more than $50,000. It is believed that there should be 48,000 rich Chinese families, whose total annual income is $3 billion.

The report is based on a survey designed by MasterCard and conducted by National Condition Research Institute, covering 15,000 responders each with an annual income of more than $10,000. All of them are from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

The survey reveals that 62% of the rich Chinese are aged between 25 and 34, with another 23% in their late 30s. It can be concluded that the younger generation are better at grasping the opportunities in the market than the older generation due to their good educational background and a wider outlook.

Actually, 65% of the rich Chinese have received college education, while only 7% of them did not go to college at all. Nevertheless, there are only 8% of the total Chinese who have college diplomas, and another 15% have finished their college education without getting diplomas.

More than 50% of the rich Chinese have bought houses of their own, and another 33% have bought two houses. About 10% of them have even bought more than two. Only 5% of them don't own real estates at all.

The report touches upon the conditions of the middle-class, too, who earns between $7,500 and $50,000 every year. There were 12 million middle-class families in China in 2005, with the total annual income of $140 billion. Since China's actual annual GDP growth is 7.5%, there will be 400,000 rich Chinese families by 2015.