Nearly 80 percent of Taiwan’s ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) are looking at wealth gains this year, with real-estate investment most likely to win their attention and inflation topping their list of risks, a survey by property consultancy REPro Knight Frank Taiwan showed yesterday.
The findings made super-rich Taiwanese more optimistic than their global peers, only 68 percent of whom are upbeat about wealth increase, research director Howard Zhan (詹宗煌) told a news conference in Taipei, defining UHNWIs as people with investable assets in excess of US$30 million.
Despite the financial turmoil and economic headwinds, 40 percent of super-rich people worldwide last year saw their assets increase, with 17 percent posting gains of more than 10 percent, Zhan said.
Photo: Lee Chin-hui, Taipei Times
That meant the remaining 60 percent saw their assets contract.
Taiwan’s UHNWIs fared worse last year, with only 26 percent seeing their wealth increase and 74 percent suffering losses, the survey showed.
Asked about risks ahead, 67 percent of the world’s super-rich named inflation as the biggest downside risk, followed by interest rate hikes at 59 percent, geopolitical tensions at 53 percent and recession at 13 percent, Zhan said.
As for opportunities, 46 percent of global UHNWIs favored investing in real estate, followed by technology businesses at 33 percent, equity markets at 28 percent and fixed-income products at 15 percent, the survey showed.
Real estate is the most favored option, because of its resilience to inflation, Zhan said.
Taiwan’s very wealthy people lag behind their regional and global peers in terms of real-estate investment appetite, with only 13 percent saying they intend to buy residential properties this year, compared with 16 percent for the Asia-Pacific area and 15 percent globally, Zhan said.
Taiwan’s UHNWIs own an average of 2.9 houses, compared with an average of 4.9 houses among their regional peers and 4.2 houses globally, the survey found.
In addition, 40 percent of the super-rich in Taiwan prefer owning real-estate properties overseas, higher than 26 percent among their peers in the region and 28 percent globally, it said.
Japan is the most popular target at 58 percent, followed by the US at 47 percent, Canada at 37 percent and Australia at 21 percent, the survey showed, adding that Singapore, Vietnam and the UK also rank high with more than 10 percent.
REPro Knight Frank Taiwan general manager Cliff So (蘇銳強) said that the ban on transfers of presale house contracts would make developers more cautious about launching new products and slow overall residential property transactions.
Demand for factory and office buildings would remain strong as companies shift production bases back to Taiwan, So said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort