The number of dollar millionaires in Africa is expected to keep rising over the next decade, but at a slower pace compared to the last ten years, a New World Wealth report showed.

The South African Research Firm’s report corroborates  the ‘Africa 2015 Wealth Report’ that was published in May that indicated that Africa was the fastest growing market for high net worth individuals, or HNWI.

The New World Wealth report says there were about 161,000 millionaires living in Africa at the end of 2014, with a combined wealth of $660 billion or 2.2 percent of the continent’s GDP. They are expected to  increase by 45 percent to 234,000 over the next 10 years.

Between 2000 to 2014, African millionaire’s wealth increased by 145 percent compared to a worldwide growth rate of 73 per cent during the same period.

Most sub-Saharan African countries have grown at double the global average rate over the last decade driven by an increase in the number of people entering the middle class and super-rich status as the region trades more with the rest of the world.

The World Bank, which forecast an average of 5.5 per cent economic growth for Sub-Saharan Africa over the next year,  however warned that “extreme poverty” remained high across the region despite these growth.

“It’s no wonder that rich individuals in Africa are getting richer, because we’re seeing a form of ‘development’ … which hugely benefits the wealthy but makes the lives of the poor even harder,” Nick Dearden, the director of the advocacy group Global Justice Now, told the Guardian.

“Aid money, trade agreements and corporate ‘investment’ pushed by Britain are locking countries into a form of growth, which is all about making the rich even more rich and the poor even more poor.”

In terms of millionaires growth among African countries, the New World Wealth report showed that Mozambique was expected to add the most dollar millionaires at 120 percent over the next decade, followed by Cote d’Ivoire and Zambia.

The growth in these countries is attributed to a mix of construction, financial services and property developments, Bloomberg reported.