Viet Nam is projected to stand third in the group of countries with the fastest growth rate of affluent population globally, or New Wealth Builders (NWBs), which are households with financial assets of 100,000 USD to 2 million USD, in the 2014-2020 period.

During the time frame, the Southeast Asian country will have about 347,000 NWBs, representing a 34.9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and standing behind India (47.4%) and Indonesia (41.2%), according to a report recently released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) under The Economist magazine.

A Toyota Lexus car is parked in downtown Ho Chi Minh City.

The report was prepared with support from U.S. banking and financial giant Citigroup Inc. and covered 32 countries.

The total assets of the Vietnamese group will top 68.1 million USD, or about 196,500 USD each household.

However, in terms of quantity, the number of NWBs  in Viet Nam is still modest compared with other countries in the region such as China (over 166 million), India (over 4.9 million), Philippines (about 2.5 million), Thailand (nearly 2.2 million), and Indonesia (nearly 1.9 million).

The report also envisions bright prospects for Viet Nam's economy in 2015, indicating that the nation continues to be an attractive land for NWB groups over the next two decades, based on stable growth of income and private consumption and price stabilisation policies of the government.

Globally, Latin America will be home to the highest number of the emerging rich in the world by 2020, immediately followed by the Asia-Pacific region, led by China and Japan.