NO WONDER he’s smiling — Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has walloped his fellow world leaders in the annual salary stakes, earning three times more than his nearest rival.

PM Lee’s $2.32 million tops the list of 10 highest-paid world leaders, according to an annual salary list compiled by financial news and opinion site 24/7WallSt.

Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull is fifth on the list, with an annual PM salary of $522,0000, only just behind American President Barack Obama, on $527,000.

It might seem small change compared to PM Lee, but Mr Turnbull’s pay eclipses the Australian average annual wage of $72,800 a year. And Turnbull’s personal wealth is an estimated $200 million.

THE TOP 10 LIST IS:

1 — Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore, $2.32 million

2 — Leung Chun-ying, Hong Kong, $760,000

3 — Johann N. Schneider-Ammann, Switzerland, $606,000

4 — Barack Obama, US, $527,000

5 — Malcolm Turnbull, Australia, $522,000

6 — Werner Faymann, Austria, $452,000

7 — Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg, $336,000

8 — Justin Trudeau, Canada, $333,000

9 — Angela Merkel, Germany, $322,000

10 — Charles Michel, Belgium, $315,000

The leader rich list excludes “leaders of absolute monarchies and of a number of constitutional monarchies”, conceding while these are “generally among the wealthiest people on the planet”.

“However, they were excluded from this list because incomes of sultans, emirs, and kings are frequently unavailable.”

It also notes that the annual salary rarely encapsulates the full financial story of being a country’s most high-ranking official, since it fails to take into account benefits including a residence funded and maintained by tax payer dollars, lifetime pension benefits, and commercial opportunities post political life.