UK PM Sunak, wife Akshata Murty figure on 'Asian Rich List 2022' in UK

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty have made their debut on the UK's 'Asian Rich List 2022' topped by the Hinduja family.

Sunak and his wife, whose father N R Narayana Murthy co-founded Indian IT major Infosys, are ranked 17th on the list, with an estimated wealth of 790 million pounds.

The combined wealth of this year's list sits at 113.2 billion pounds, an increase of 13.5 billion pounds over that of last year.

The list is topped by the Hinduja family for the eighth consecutive time with an estimated wealth of 30.5 billion pounds, an increase of 3 billion pounds from the last year.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan presented a copy of the 'Asian Rich List 2022' to Ritu Chhabria, daughter of Gopichand Hinduja, Co-Chairman of the Hinduja Group at the 24th annual Asian Business Awards at the Westminster Park Plaza hotel on Wednesday night.

Hinduja Group is an Indian transnational conglomerate. The group is present in eleven sectors.

Addressing the gathering, Chief Guest Oliver Dowden, MP, Chancellor of Dutchy of Lancaster, said: "every year, we see the British Asian Community continue to grow in stature which comes as no surprise to me personally."

"Throughout my life, I have seen first hand the hard work, determination and entrepreneurship of the British Asian community. And, of course, in my latest job, I have a British Asian Boss, my very good friend Mr Rishi Sunak, the United Kingdom's first-ever British Asian Prime Minister," Dowden said.

Sunak made an impressive comeback to become the UK's first Indian-origin Prime Minister on October 25, seven weeks after he had lost the race for 10 Downing Street to Liz Truss.

The 42-year-old investment banker-turned politician is the youngest British Prime Minister in 210 years and also the UK's first Hindu Prime Minister.

"I want to say thank you. British Asian business community is widely recognised as one of the most successful entrepreneurial groups ever. It is a remarkable story of building business creating jobs and amassing wealth. And as outlined in this year's Asian Rich list, Asian entrepreneurs have enriched Britain in all aspects of our national life," Dowden said.

This year's Asian Rich list boasts of 16 billionaires from the UK, one more than the last year with most of the billionaires seeing their wealth increase or stay the same as last year.

Sri Prakash Lohia and family have seen the biggest increase in wealth on this year's list, a rise of 4 billion pounds to 8.8 billion pounds.

Lakshmi Mittal and his son Aditya (12.8 billion pounds) and Prakash Lohia and family (8.8 billion pounds) and Nirmal Sethia (6.5 billion pounds) are other richest on the list.

Shailesh R Solanki, Executive Editor of Asian Marketing Group (AMG) and the host of the event, said: "The Asian Rich list is carefully compiled by a team of experts and it is the definitive guide to Asian wealth in Britain.