As the great and the good prepare to gather in the Swiss resort of Davos for the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of leading political andbusiness elites, Oxfam International has published new figures that highlight global inequality.

Oxfam estimates that the richest 1 per cent of the world's 7.3 billion people now own as much as the rest of the world put together while just 62 individuals - including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, telecoms magnate Carlos Slim and investor Warren Buffet, are now worth the same amount as the poorest half of the global population.

In particular, it highlights the role that “an ever more elaborate system of tax havens” is playing in the deepening divide, calling for a “global approach to end the era of tax havens”.