Tanzania tenth on Africa list of dollar millionaires

 

By 

Zephania Ubwani

Summary

·         In eastern Africa, Tanzania trails Kenya and Ethiopia , which have 7,700 and 2,700  high-net-worth individuals, respectively, according to a new report.

Arusha. Tanzania is the tenth richest country in Africa in high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs), with 2,400 dollar millionaires.

The country trails Kenya and Ethiopia in the eastern Africa region which have 7,700 and 2,700 millionaires respectively.

Data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), show that South Africa has the largest number of richest individuals, numbering 37,800.

It is followed by Egypt with 16,100 and Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, which has 9,800 individuals.

"South Africa is the highest ranking African country if measuring the number of millionaires residing there,” a report has shown.

A high net worth individual is a financial industry classification for people with at least $1 million in liquid financial assets.

The liquid assets in question should be cash or money in investments that can be converted to cash relatively easily at any time.

High-net-worth individuals must have at least $1 million in cash in hand and assets that can be converted to cash.

Although lists of liquid assets often exclude stocks and bonds, high net worth individuals tend to have investment portfolios that include the same.

In the latest classification released on Monday, Kenya is ranked fourth followed by Morocco (5,800) and Mauritius (4,900).

Algeria, the second largest economy in the Maghreb region, is ranked seventh with 2,800 millionaires, ahead of Ethiopia (2,700) and Ghana (2,600).

There are several advantages to having many high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in a society.

One of them is that HNWIs can contribute a significant amount of money to the economy through investments and philanthropy.

Economic investing can create new businesses and job opportunities and fund essential social programmes and charitable organizations.

In addition, HNWIs often have a great deal of influence in their communities and can use their wealth to drive political change.

Despite falling in the 10th position in dollar millionaires, Tanzania is ranked eighth in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in Africa for last year.

Nominal GDP is evaluated at current market prices. Put simply, it is the total value of all goods and services produced in a given time period less the value of those made during the production process.

Economists say nominal GDP is one way to measure how well the economy is doing unlike real GDP which doesn't include changes in prices due to inflation.

Tanzania holds 2.56 percent of the nominal GDP in Africa for 2022 ahead of Ghana which accounts for 2.54 percent of the total shares.

The three top economic giants in the continent - Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa - led the pack with a combined total nominal GDP of 46.34 percent.

Algeria is fourth with 6.26 percent followed by Morocco (4.78 percent), Kenya (4.18 percent) and Ethiopia 3.72 percent.

The rest of 46 African countries - out of 55 - accounted for 27.78 percent, being their combined nominal GDP against 72.22 percent held by nine countries, including Tanzania.

Tanzania is, however, not among the ten richest countries in Africa by Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, according to a ranking mode by the World Bank.

GNI is an economic metric that measures the overall income brought into a country by its citizens from anywhere in the world, (including foreign investments.

It is nearly identical to Gross National Product (GNP) which measures the earnings of a country's citizens but also includes overseas earnings that weren't transferred.

The richest countries in the continent by GNI per capita in income ranking are Seychelles $14,549, Mauritius ($9,920) and Libya ($8,700).

South Africa, the continent's economic powerhouse with the largest number of dollar millionaires, is ranked fourth with $6,530 GNI per capita.

Other countries in the top ten are Gabon ($6,440), Botswana ($6,430) Equatorial Guinea ($5,150), Namibia ($4,650), Algeria ($3,660) and Eswatini $3,650.