Wealth of 5 richest men doubled since 2020; 5 bn people now poorer: Oxfam

Fortunes of five richest men have more than doubled since 2020 and the world could have its first-ever trillionaire in just a decade while it would take more than two centuries to end poverty, rights group Oxfam said on Monday.

Releasing its annual inequality report on the first day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting here, Oxfam said seven of 10 of the world's biggest corporations have a billionaire as a CEO, or principal shareholder.

It further said that 148 top corporations made USD 1.8 trillion in profits, 52 per cent up on three-year average, and dished out huge payouts to rich shareholders, while hundreds of millions faced cuts in real-term pay.

Oxfam called for a new era of public action, including public services, corporate regulation, breaking up monopolies and enacting permanent wealth and excess profit taxes.

The world's five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from USD 405 billion to USD 869 billion since 2020 "at a rate of USD 14 million per hour", while nearly five billion people have already been made poorer in this "decade of division", said the Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power.

"If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won't be eradicated for another 229 years," it said.

Titled 'Inequality Inc.', the report said seven of ten of the world's biggest corporations have a billionaire as CEO, or principal shareholder, and these corporations are worth USD 10.2 trillion, equivalent to more than the combined GDPs of all countries in Africa and Latin America.

"We are witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires' fortunes boom.

"This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else," Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar said.

Despite representing just 21 per cent of the global population, rich countries in the Global North own 69 per cent of global wealth and are home to 74 per cent of the world's billionaire wealth, Oxfam said.