Wealth in Turkey grew the most in the world at 157% despite soaring inflation, according to ranking

Turkey came out miles ahead of the rest of the world in an annual global wealth ranking — in a result that may come as surprising, given the country's high levels of inflation.

"Türkiye stands out with a staggering growth of over 157% in wealth per adult between 2022 and 2023, leaving all other nations far behind," Swiss bank UBS wrote in its Global Wealth Report 2024, using the local spelling for the country's name.

The next-highest countries in terms of average wealth growth per adult were Russia and Qatar with nearly 20% and South Africa with just over 16%. In the U.S., average wealth per adult grew by nearly 2.5%.

Inflation in Turkey sits at nearly 72%, an eye-watering figure for the country's 85 million people, many of whom have seen a dramatic drop in their purchasing power over the last several years. In the last five years, the Turkish lira has lost nearly 83% of its value against the dollar, and the currency trades at 33 lira to the greenback as of 09:07 a.m. London time on Wednesday.

But for Turks who own assets like homes, wealth has grown, as inflation pushes up the costs of those holdings.

The UBS report defines net worth or "wealth" as "the value of financial assets plus real assets (principally housing) owned by households, minus their debts." In a call with journalists, some of the report's authors broke down the relationship between inflation and wealth rises in Turkey.

"In certain ways, the high pace of inflation also helps explain why wealth has risen much much more in local currency terms, at least [more] than in other countries because it's worth keeping in mind that wealth is measured in nominal terms," Samuel Adams economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, told CNBC.

"If inflation is very high, what