ABU DHABI, Nov. 4, 2009 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is expected to see its population of high net worth individuals ( HNWIs) grow by 11 percent in 2010, a local business newspaper reported Wednesday.

UBS, the world's largest manager of private wealth assets, said it saw stronger growth of HNWIs for the UAE compared to the rest of the countries in the region, the Emirates Business 24/7 said.

According to the newspaper, UBS (NYSE:UBS) also predicted HNWIs in the Middle East as a whole to increase by about nine percent next year, saying the factors behind the rise included recovery in global asset prices and strong savings rates across the region.

UBS defines HNWIs as households with liquid assets exceeding 2 million Swiss francs (about 1.95 million U.S. dollars).

Emirates Business 24/7 said Scorpio Partnership, a wealth management consultancy in Britain, also expected the number of HNWIs in the UAE to rise in 2010.

"Our long-term HNWIs growth rate forecast for the UAE is 9 percent. While we would not have expected growth to have reached this figure through 2008 and 2009, there are good indicators that the UAE will continue to reach this potential in five years," Catherine Tillotson, head of the firm's research team, told the paper.

The report said that early last year, Oliver Wyman, a management consultancy, predicted that wealth held by HNWIs in member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is expected to grow from 2.1 trillion dollars in 2007 to 3.8 trillion dollars by 2012.

The GCC, a regional trade bloc created in 1981, comprises the Arab Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.