(Jan 3): Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has declared assets worth US$400 million (RM1.8 billion), including two properties in London, investments in several companies and a collection of luxury watches and handbags.
The 38-year-old scion of the wealthy Shinawatra clan also listed 1.09 billion baht (US$31.6 million or RM142.28 million) of cash and deposits in more than two dozen bank accounts among her 13.85 billion baht worth of assets. She disclosed her wealth to the National Anti-Corruption Commission as part of the requirements for Thai holders of public offices, and the agency made the record public on Friday.
Paetongtarn, the youngest daughter of billionaire politician Thaksin Shinawatra, became the third member of the Shinawatra family to lead Thailand in August after her predecessor Srettha Thavisin was ousted by the Constitutional Court in an ethics violation case. The Shinawatras are among the country’s wealthiest families with Thaksin striking it rich in the technology boom of the 1980s and 1990s by setting up companies that offered mobile phone services, data networks and satellites.
The prime minister previously transferred her 24% stake in the family-controlled property developer SC Asset Corp Pcl in November to a fund manager. Paetongtarn has about 11 billion baht of investment in companies and she reported an income of more than 265 million baht last year, the document showed. Among her other assets are 217 handbags, 108 rings, 205 pairs of earrings, and nine designer art toys, called Bearbrick.
The London properties include an apartment on Montpelier Street that’s on a 992-year lease, the declaration showed. She also owns nine properties and a dozen plots of land across Thailand. She also co-owns a parcel of land in Hokkaido in Japan along with her husband.
Pidok Sooksawas, Paetongtarn’s spouse and a former commercial pilot, reported assets worth 147 million baht and an income of 5.13 million baht last year that included gains from crypto currency trading. He is the co-chief executive officer at Rende Development Co, part of the Shinawatra family’s business empire that spans real estate, hospitality and telecommunications.
Paetongtarn’s coalition government has pledged to boost Thailand’s US$500 billion economy, which has been lagging behind Southeast Asian peers over the past decade, and slash the cost of living for its 66 million people. The government has relied on a mix of cash handouts, ramped-up state spending and attracting fresh foreign investments in areas such as data centres and electric vehicles manufacturing to prop up growth.
While Thailand has made rapid progress in poverty reduction over the past two decades, it has the highest level of income-based inequality in East Asia and the Pacific with a Gini coefficient of 43.3% in 2021, according to the World Bank.
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