: The number of Taiwan citizens whose net assets exceeded US$1 million fell last year by 18 percent to 58,000, according to a survey released here today. The survey by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini shows that there were 71,000 millionaires in Taiwan in 2007, and 66,000 in 2006. It attributes the decline to the global economic downturn, coupled with challenging equity and property markets. In the Asia Pacific region, Japan and China together accounted for 71.9 percent of the total millionaire population and 65.8 percent of the region's wealth, at the end of 2008. The number of millionaires in Japan last year was 1,366,000, down by 9.9 percent from the previous year, while in China the number was 364,000, down by 11.8 percent year-on-year. The survey also shows that the wealthy in Hong Kong took the hardest hit in the region last year as a result of the global financial crisis, with the number of millionaires dropping by 61.3 percent to 37,000. The assets calculated in the survey include the value of private equity holdings, as well as all forms of publicly quoted equities, bonds, funds and cash deposits. It excluded collectibles, consumables and real estate used as primary residences. 