Contrary to Dubai, a state with not much oil and thus aspiring to diversify away into financial services and tourism, Abu Dhabi controls approximately 8% of the world’s oil and one of the largest Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF).

It remains to be seen how the RBA will go about doing that using all tools at their disposal. They deserve to be mentioned as one of the most credible central banks, though, as seen by them being so far effective in guiding long-term interest rates, thus reflecting the market’s trust in them.

There are shifts in the concentration of millionaire population. While US, Japan and Germany still account for 54% of HNWIs in the world, China has now moved into 4th position surpassing UK. Similarly Brazil has now moved ahead of Australia and Spain in the 10th position.
The study also forecasts that the HNWI wealth will recover to $48.5 Trillion by 2013 and the Asia-Pacific will overtake North America as the largest region for HNWI financial wealth.

Private home transactions - for both new and resale homes - jumped by more than 130 per cent last year, despite the downturn.

Australia’s shortage of available homes will more than quadruple to almost half a million by 2020 if the nation doesn’t increase the pace of construction, a new report claims. New South Wales and Queensland face the biggest problems.

The World Bank raised its China growth forecast this year to 9.5 per cent from nine per cent on Wednesday but said Beijing needs to cool inflation and possible bubbles in real estate prices.