Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is the youngest person to take on the role, as well as the second woman to serve as the nation’s leader.
Not just that, she is also incredibly wealthy.
The commission made the details publicly available on Friday.
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So, how rich is Paetongtarn Shinawatra?
The Prime Minister of Thailand has declared assets exceeding $400 million, which include over 200 designer handbags valued at more than $2 million and at least 75 luxury watches worth nearly $5 million.
The 38-year-old, the youngest daughter of billionaire politician Thaksin Shinawatra, became the third member of her family to lead the country in August after her predecessor, Srettha Thavisin, was removed from office by the Constitutional Court in an ethics case.
The Shinawatras are among Thailand’s wealthiest families, with Thaksin growing his wealth during the 1980s and 1990s tech boom by founding companies specialising in mobile phone services, data networks, and satellites.
According to the Bangkok Post, Paetongtarn and her husband’s combined assets amount to 13.99 billion baht – with the Prime Minister holding 13.84 billion baht, her husband Pitaka Suksawat 141.11 million baht, and their children 500,000 baht.
Pitaka, a former commercial pilot and co-chief executive of Rende Development Co., reported an income of 5.13 million baht last year, partly from cryptocurrency trading, Bloomberg reported. He contributes to the Shinawatra family’s huge business empire, which includes real estate, hospitality, and telecommunications.
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The Thailand prime minister reported an annual income of 265 million baht, including a salary of 3.40 million baht, dividends worth 259.26 million baht, interest of 2 million baht, and rental income of 890,000 baht. Her annual expenditures totalled 57.72 million baht, including 45 million baht for personal expenses and 7 million baht for household costs, the Bangkok Post said in a report.
Paetongtarn’s collection of 23 luxury vehicles includes a Bentley worth 10.6 million baht and a Rolls-Royce Phantom valued at 6.7 million baht.
Despite her massive wealth, she declared liabilities of nearly five billion baht, resulting in a net worth of 8.9 billion baht ($258 million), according to documents from the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC)
A representative of the Pheu Thai Party confirmed to AFP that the figures reported in the Thai press were accurate.
Her father, Thaksin, a former prime minister and one-time owner of Manchester City Football Club, has a net worth of $2.1 billion, according to Forbes, ranking him as Thailand’s 10th-richest individual.
Meanwhile, her predecessor,
Srettha Thavisin, declared assets of 985 million baht at the time of his dismissal – a decrease from the 1.02 billion baht he reported at the start of his term.
The legacy of Thaksin Shinawatra
Thaksin Shinawatra leveraged the fortune generated through his Shin Corp telecommunications empire to launch his political career. Despite being ousted in a coup and spending years in exile, his family has maintained large influence in Thailand’s political landscape.
Analysts have pointed out the deep ties between wealth and power in the country.
“In a nation without a fully functioning democracy, money plays a crucial role in political activities,” Yuttaporn Issarachai from Sukhothai Thammathirat University told AFP.
“This has often been the justification for military interventions, with claims of a lack of transparency.”
Thailand and Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s coalition government
Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s coalition government has promised to elevate Thailand’s $500 billion economy, which has trailed behind other Southeast Asian nations over the past decade.
It seeks to reduce the cost of living for the country’s 66 million people through measures such as cash handouts, increased state spending, and efforts to attract foreign investment in sectors like data centres and electric vehicle manufacturing.
Despite rapid progress in poverty reduction over the past 20 years, Thailand remains the most income-unequal country in East Asia and the Pacific, with a Gini coefficient of 43.3% in 2021, according to Bloomberg, which cited World Bank data.
Paetongtarn is the third member of the Shinawatra family to serve as prime minister, following her billionaire father, Thaksin Shinawatra, and her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra. Both were ousted in coups and forced into exile, although Thaksin returned to Thailand last year after Pheu Thai formed a government.
She assumed office just days after the Constitutional Court removed Srettha Thavisin as Prime Minister, who had been in power for less than a year.
The court ruled that Srettha committed a serious ethical breach by appointing a Cabinet minister who had been jailed for contempt of court following an alleged attempt to bribe a judge.
During her royal endorsement ceremony, Paetongtarn thanked the king, the Thai people, and lawmakers. She promised to serve “with an open mind” and vowed to “make every square inch of Thailand a space that allows Thai people to dare to dream, dare to create and dare to dictate their own future.”
Paetongtarn has a degree in political science from Chulalongkorn University and a master’s degree in international hotel management from the University of Surrey in the UK. At the age of 17, she gained media attention when she worked a part-time job at McDonald’s, with her father making a surprise visit.
From 2011 until entering politics, much of Paetongtarn’s career was tied to the Shinawatra family’s business ventures, which include a golf course and companies in real estate, hospitality, and telecommunications.
With inputs from AFP
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