The rich get... well... you know.

The world's millionaires will be 50 percent richer in five years, according to an annual wealth report.

The 6 million people with financial assets above

$1 million will see their collective wealth rise about

9 percent a year to reach $32.7 trillion by the end of 2003, according to the 1999 report by investment bank Merrill Lynch and Gemini Consulting.

The study follows an excellent 1998 when millionaires prospered despite turmoil on global markets. These "high net worth individuals," as the report calls them, got 12 percent richer in 1998 when their combined assets reached $21.6 trillion.

Millionaires were said to have been helped by the recovery of US and European stock markets later in the year and switching from cash into equities.