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The number of the wealthy people across the world sharply falls, according to The Wealth Report compiled by Knight Frank, an international consulting firm.

According to the firm’s estimates, the number of the multimillionaires across the world reduced by 5500 over 2015. As of the beginning of 2016, there are about 187.500 people with over $30 million in net assets around the world.

The total number of the wealthy people has reduced for the first times since 2005 with the combined sum of their fortune falling to $19.3 trillion from $20.8 trillion. The main reasons of the situation are the reduction of the rates of the economic growth in most countries, the fall of most major stock market indices, the sharp drop of oil prices, the lower growth of the property markets around the world, and so on. According to Knight Frank, the overall number of the billionaires in the CIS countries reduced by 4 percent.

As for Azerbaijan, as well as Mongolia and Vietnam, the firm notes a significant rise of the number of millionaires and multimillionaires as compared with 2005. In Azerbaijan, the number of the wealthy people rose by 444 percent in total. While there were about 1000 millionaires and 40 multimillionaires in the country in 2005, the figure stood at 5600 and 240 people respectively for 2015.

The Wealth Report has been published annually by the international consulting firm Knight Frank since 2006.
On 21 December 2015, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan switched to floating rate of the national currency, manat. As a result, the exchange rate of the US dollar and Euro to manat rose by almost 50 percent leading to a sharp rise of prices of products, medicine and services as well as causing an increase of unemployment. This incited numerous protests in the regions. Reportedly, the number of the suicides because of bank loans grew following the aggravation of the socio-economic situation in the country. According to reports, the number of the bank debtors in Azerbaijan is about 400 thousand people, and most of them are not able to pay up the loans because of the devaluation of manat.

According to local reports, the most well-to-do part of Azerbaijan’s population are ministers and other officials, whose main source of wealth are bribes and plunder of public money. Given that the officials in Azerbaijan are prohibited from running entrepreneurship, they register their properties under their relatives’ names.

Eyyub Huseynov, the head of the Consumers Union of Azerbaijan, said no oligarch or businessman wishes to allocate resources for carrying out some social projects amid the worsening socio-economic situation in the country, as they are more concerned in their pockets than in the poor and hungry citizens.