Bangladesh has the third fastest growing rich population in the world, according to a global report released last week.
The number of high net worth population in the Bangladesh is set to increase by 11.4 per cent by 2023, said Wealth-X.
Only two other countries will see their rich population grow faster than Bangladesh during this period. The two countries are Nigeria (16.3 per cent) and Egypt (12.5 per cent).
India and China are likely to see its HNW population grow by 9.7 per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively during the same period.
Earlier in September last year, the Wealth-X published another global report where it said the number of ultra high net worth (UHNW) population increased by 17.3 per cent in Bangladesh during the period of 2012-2017, the highest in the world.
The Wealth-X defines those with wealth between $1.0m and $30m in net worth as the high net worth population and those with wealth above $ 30 million in net worth as the ultra high net worth (UHNW) population.
The report comes at a time when all the major economic indicators are pointing at rising income inequality in the country.
"Income inequality is bound to rise when non-labour income outpaces labour income in a country", said Binayak Sen, Research Director at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).
He called for conducting a comprehensive wealth survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) to address this rising inequality.
"Such a survey would help us implement an effective wealth tax in the country", he said.
Mr. Sen also observed that the quality of income data of BBS should also be enhanced.
Meanwhile, the report also found that globally the number of ultra net worth population rose by 1.9 per cent to 22.4m people in 2018 and was forecast to increase by another 6.2 per cent over the next five years.
The United States continues to have the world's largest high net worth population followed by China and Japan.
Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, South Korea, Australia and Italy are also among the top 10 countries with high net worth population.
The 10 countries with the largest HNW populations saw the total number grow by over 387,000 HNW individuals (up 2.4 per cent compared with 2017, with combined net worth in these countries rising by an annual $1.0tn (up 2.4 per cent).
Asia is forecast to experience the strongest growth in the number of HNW individuals and combined wealth, with the region's HNW population projected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 7.6 per cent over the next five years, according to the report.
Founded in 2010, Wealth-X is a global ultra high net worth (UHNW) intelligence and data company headquartered in New York and London.
The company's database includes more than 100,000 global records, each representing an individual whose net worth is believed to be more than US$30 million.
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