Ahn Chul-soo reports largest amount of assets among lawmakers

Ahn Chul-soo reports largest amount of assets among lawmakers. March. 26, 2016 07:31. by 손영일 기자scud2007@donga.com.

Ahn Chul-soo, co-leader of the minor opposition People’s Party, is the richest lawmaker in the 19th National Assembly, seeing his assets more than double over the past year. Six out of 10 lawmakers reported increased assets.

According to reported changes in 290 lawmakers’ assets disclosed by the National Assembly’s ethics committee on Friday, Ahn registered nearly 163 billion won (139.3 million U.S. dollars) in total assets, up 84.2 billion won (7.2 million dollars) from a year earlier, due largely to increased value of his stock holdings in Ahn Lab Inc., a computer software company he founded. Ahn’s holdings in the company jumped from nearly 70 billion won (5.7 million dollars) to 151 billion won (129 million dollars). Kim Se-yeon, a lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party, who reported the largest amount of assets among lawmakers, ranked second this year.

Kim Moo-sung, the Saenuri chairman, reported 13.9 billion won (11.9 million dollars) in assets, while Moon Jae-in, former head of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, registered 1.4 billion won (1.2 million U.S. dollars) as his assets.

Excluding the three richest lawmakers who reported more than 50 billion won (42.7 million dollars) in assets, lawmakers’ average wealth amounted to slightly less than 2 billion won (1.7 million dollars), similar to last year’s average. By political party, Saenuri lawmakers had 2.3 billion won (2 million dollars) per person on average, followed by an average of 1.93 billion won (1.6 million dollars) among the Minjoo Party and nearly 433 million won (370,000 dollars). More than 65 percent of the incumbent legislators saw their assets increase over the year. Among them, 91 reported that their assets rose by more than 100 million won (85, 470 dollars), and five others saw their assets increase by more than 1 billion won (854.7 million dollars), while 101, or nearly 34.8 percent, of the lawmakers saw their assets decrease.