The number of Chinese mainland millionaires with more than one million US dollars in assets, excluding their own homes, rose by 7.8 percent year on year to 345,000 last year, says a report jointly released by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

The rise resulted from the nation's growing gross domestic product (GDP) and returns from capital market, says the report.

China's GDP has kept growing at a speed of over 10 percent for four consecutive years and topped 20 trillion yuan (2.7 trillion US dollars) in 2006. The country's stock market recovered from a five-year plunge last year and has since almost doubled.

Meanwhile, increasing exports and domestic consumption also contributed to the growing number of millionaires, said Merrill Lynch Asia-Pacific marketing director Francis Liu.

Chinese millionaires accounted for 20.6 percent of the wealth in the Asia-Pacific region, second only to the Japanese.

The millionaires chiefly invested in property and stock markets, but they will invest more in the financial derivative markets along with the development of the capital market, the report said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 18, 2007)