Saturday, April 21, 2012

Russian rich get richer

Over the next five years, the number of rich Russians worth over $100 million is set to grow by 76 percent, ahead of the global figure of 37 percent. That’s according to a new survey by the Knight Frank real estate consultancy and Citi Private Bank.

 Given the bonanza for the super-rich, the negligible growth in real wages of 0.8 percent, coupled with the apparently underestimated official inflation rate, means that real living standards for the majority of Russians fell.

The wealthiest Russians are amassing capital also through the redistribution of income from the majority of the population. This widening income gap points to deep internal fissures in society. Since the era of privatization many of the wealthiest people in Russia are not “self-made,” but were either appointed “oligarchs,” as in the 1990s, or have been given access to the immense sources of profit in the country.

 Forbes magazine has prepared a new list of 200 richest people of Russia. The overall wealth of these businessmen is about 450 billion U.S. dollars.

Alisher Usmanov, the founder of Metallinvest, general director of “Gazprominvestkholding” and large share holder of Facebook, tops the list with a fortune of 18.1 billion U.S. dollars.

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