More than half the world's wealth will be owned by only 1% of the population by next year as global inequality soars, anti-poverty charity Oxfam said yesterday.
In a report released ahead of this week's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam said the top tier had seen its share of the world's wealth increase from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year.
On current trends, it will exceed 50% next year.
The charity's executive director, Winnie Byanyima, who is co-chairing the meeting in Davos, said an explosion in inequality was holding back the fight against poverty.
"Do we really want to live in a world in which 1% own more than the rest of us combined?" she said yesterday.
Oxfam said it would call at the Davos meeting for action to tackle rising inequality, including a crackdown on tax dodging by corporations.
The meeting starts tomorrow.
The richest 80 individuals in the world had the same wealth as the poorest half of the entire world population, about 3.5 billion people, Oxfam said. This was an even bigger concentration of wealth at the top than a year ago, when half the world's wealth was in the hands of 85 of the ultra rich.
Members of the top 1% had an average wealth of $2.7-million each, Oxfam said.
Most of the remaining wealth was owned by the rest of the richest fifth, whereas the other 80% shared only 5.5%.
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