PTI Davos

Billionaire wealth across the globe surged by USD 2 trillion in 2024 to USD 15 trillion at a rate three times faster than the previous year, a study showed on Monday here as the richest of the world began to assemble for their annual jamboree in this ski resort town.

In its flagship inequity report released every year on the first day of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Oxfam International contrasted the huge jump in the billionaire wealth with the number of people living in poverty barely having changed since 1990.

Wealth of billionaires in Asia increased by USD 299 billion in 2024, Oxfam said while predicting that there will be at least five trillionaires within a decade from now. The year 2024 saw 204 new billionaires getting minted. Asia itself got 41 new billionaires in the year.

In its report titled 'Takers, not Makers', Oxfam said the richest 1 per cent in the Global North extracted USD 30 million an hour from the Global South through the financial systems in 2023. It further said that 60 per cent of billionaire wealth is now derived from inheritance, monopoly power or crony connections, showing that "extreme billionaire wealth is largely unmerited."

The rights group urged governments across the world to tax the richest to reduce inequality, end extreme wealth, and dismantle the new aristocracy. It also sought that the former colonial powers must address past harms with reparations.

Oxfam International's Executive Director Amitabh Behar told PTI here that the new inequality report shows there is an enormous explosion in the billionaire wealth and this is more worrisome due to the growing number of people living with hunger.

This only flags the issue of modern day colonialism in the form of multinational corporates grabbing a huge portion of wealth being created, he said. Behar said Oxfam is strongly pitching for taxing super-rich more and welcomed the growing traction across the world for taxing the wealthiest more.