GLOBAL WEALTH: COMMUNITY STRENGTH
Not just the yankee way
Even Jews, Chinese, Indians and others rule the world economy

Though the world has stood witness to ethnic conflicts, religious fundamentalism and communal hatred across the globe for centuries now, a few communities continue to play a strong role in the prosperity of world economy, thanks to their outstanding ethnic networking, strong identity and a sense of belonging. History bears testimony to the fact that contributions of a few global communities – such as Jewish financiers, Japanese skilled professionals, Indian entrepreneurs and overseas Chinese investors – have been immensely influential in furthering international commerce.

Consider this: a research compiled by a high-powered expert community appointed by the Indian Government reveals that the combined wealth of over 20 million overseas Indians is over $1 trillion, equal to India’s GDP. Overseas Indians like LN Mittal, Sri Chand Hinduja, Gopi Chand Hinduja, Anurag Dikshit and many others continue to top the list of the richest people in the UK. Similarly, the Japanese have proved to be another successful community, building empires out of virtually nothing in the last century. Japan today is not only the world’s second largest economy, it has over 20 percentage membership among the 'world’s 10 per cent wealthiest' after the US. The world also cannot forget the Jewish community, which accounts for a mere 0.25 per cent of the world population. Out of the 13.2 million Jews in the world, 5.3 million live in the US, which is a tiny fraction of the American minorities, but surprisingly controls almost 90 per cent of America’s wealth, revealed World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University in its research ‘World distribution of household wealth’ in 2006. The contributions of the overseas Chinese cannot be ignored either. This community of over 60 million people owns a combined wealth of over $3.3 trillion worth of floating assets. They also have presence in 500 of the 1,000 largest Asian companies and account for East Asia’s 70 per cent business (Chinese government statistics).

Their emergence proves that they would not only dominate the future global trade but also benefit the world economy to a greater extent. The development of these communities in most American and European countries helped the host economies to flourish economically. This gives a clear warning to those who are antagonistic to these ethnic immigrants that if they don't change their outlook towards them, they will eventually end up hampering their own economy as it happened during the Holocaust under the German Nazi regime and violence against ethnic Indians in Africa. On the other hand, if India can learn how to attract and encourage overseas Indians to invest in India the way China has done (over 80 per cent of the foreign investment in China today is from overseas Chinese), much of the economic woes could be eliminated.

Akram Hoque