Only India and China insulated from wealth erosion due to Covid-19

By Sanjeev Sharma New Delhi, Oct 23 : India and China are the two only major countries that remain insulated from the erosion of wealth due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wealth per adult in India stood at $17,300 at the end of 2019 after a year of moderate growth and was $17,420 at end-June 2020, showing some growth despite the pandemic. Wealth growth is expected to be strong through the remainder of 2020 and 2021, as per the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2020.
“While average wealth in India rose by only 0.7 per cent in the first half of 2020, we estimate that the full rise for 2020 will be 5 per cent-6 per cent and 2021 will see growth of about 9 per cent,” it said.
“The most adversely-affected region was Latin America, where currency devaluations reinforced reductions in gross domestic product (GDP) to result in a 12.8 per cent decline in total wealth in US dollar terms. The pandemic eradicated the expected growth in North America and caused losses in every other region, except China and India. Among the major global economies, the United Kingdom has seen the most notable relative erosion of wealth,” Urs Rohner, Chairman of the Board of Directors Credit Suisse Group, in the introduction of the report.
The report said that total household wealth in the world dropped by $17.5 trillion between January and March.
From March onward, stock markets have rebounded and house prices have soared, and the data available for Q2 2020 suggests that household wealth is roughly back to the level at the end of last year, Rohner wrote.