Accra to be Africa’s fastest growing city by 2020 – Report

Ghana’s capital, Accra, has been tipped to be the fastest growing city for Africa millionaires starting from the end of 2012 to the year 2020.

According to the annual New World Wealth update report which was released on Monday, August 5,2013, the number of millionaires in Accra is projected to grow by 8 per cent a year.

Durban in South Africa would have the fastest growth in South Africa at 3.7 per cent, while seven other cities will grow millionaires faster than it.

Johannesburg topped the list with 23,000 millionaires at the end of 2012, followed by Cairo with 12,000 millionaires and Lagos with 9,800 millionaires respectively.

The city of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre currently ranks third in the league of cities with the highest number of millionaires in Africa, a report by the Oxford-based wealth consulting firm has said.

Lagos which is also widely acknowledged as the most populous city in Nigeria, the second fastest growing city in Africa and the seventh fastest growing city in the world, equally commands a huge presence of people from diverse cultures and race.

The city’s prosperity has been attributed to its diversity coupled with superfluous natural and human resources as well as a huge quantum of daily commercial activities and transactions, especially from the sea ports and other high turn over business ventures.

In addition, four South African cities were placed in the top 10 of the rankings and at 48,000 individuals, thereby making her the country with the highest number of millionaires in the continent. The report added South Africa’s increase represented growth of 9 per cent from the 2011 fiscal year.

Cape Town was ranked fourth with 9,000, Durban had 2,700 while Tshwane was ranked in the eighth place with 2,500 millionaires. The report further stated that although the number of millionaires in other African countries was growing at a fast rate, South African cities were still expected to dominate the top 10 list in 2020.

The report further projected that Johannesburg millionaires would grow to 30,000 by 2020 and would maintain its first position, as Lagos would only follow at a wide remove with 15,800 millionaires then.

Tshwane’s millionaires, according to the report, would increase at 3.5 per cent a year and Johannesburg’s at 3.4 per cent. Meanwhile, Cape Town did not feature in the list of fastest growing cities for millionaires in the next eight years.

The New World Wealth’s list includes high-net worth individuals with net assets of $1 million or more, including their primary residence. The report also provides information and customised products to Africa’s wealth sectors such as luxury goods companies, private banks and fund managers among others. It has a sample of more than 120,000 worldwide high-net individuals on its database.