Senior officials average 2.09 bil. won in assets; President Lee reports 4.97 bil. won

Senior public officials in central and local governments have more than 2 billion won ($1.3 million) in personal wealth on average, data showed Thursday. A total of 1,903 senior officials declared an average of 2.09 billion won in personal assets as of end-2024, up about 30 million won from the average figure a year earlier, according to the Government Ethics Committee data. Of the total, 616 officials, or 32.4 percent, had assets exceeding 2 billion won, followed by 538 with 1 billion won to 2 billion won and 374 with 500 million won to 1 billion won. The rest had less than 500 million won. President Lee Jae Myung reported 4.97 billion won in assets, up 1.88 billion won from his last disclosure, mostly due to book royalties, his salary and unrealized gains of his exchange-traded fund investment. Among members of the Cabinet, Minister of SMEs and Startups Han Seong-sook, a former chief executive of online portal giant Naver, disclosed 22.3 billion won in assets. The committee will examine the asset declarations by June and take punitive measures if any irregularities are found.

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