NESDB denies Thailand has biggest income gap in world
Thailand's national economic planning agency has denied that the country is the most unequal in the world but admits that the income gap remains a challenging issue
The National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) said on Friday that the gap between rich and poor in the country has narrowed in the past decade but is still a problem.
The NESDB said that a social media report ranking Thailand as the most unequal country globally was misleading.
By using the World Bank Gini index - a measurement that represents the income or wealth distribution of a nation's residents - Thailand's income gap has narrowed over the last 10 years, as the Gini coefficient dropped to 0.453 last year from 0.499 in 2007.
The NESDB said that Thailand's ranking was up from 46th place among 73 countries in 2013 to 40th place among 67 countries in 2015.
The state think-tank stated that the Thai government has given priority to the issue to achieve equal income distribution.
The government plans to reduce the income gap among the top 10 per cent of the richest members of the population and the 10 per cent of the poorest to 15 times by 2037, down from 22 times currently.
The government aims to bring down the Gini coefficient, to 0.36 by 2037 from 0.453 in 2017, it added
