Senior Burmese government official Aung Thaung has been airlifted to Singapore for emergency medical treatment after suffering a severe stroke.

The seventy-four-year-old lost consciousness on Wednesday night and was rushed to a Naypyidaw hospital, before the decision was made to fly him to Singapore the next morning.

A lower house MP representing his home town of Taungtha Township in Mandalay Division and current chairman of the Banks and Monetary Development Committee, Aung Thaung was minister of industry from 1997 to 2011 under the former military regime, and has a reputation as a hardliner within the now-ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

On Wednesday, senior party officials visited Aung Thaung at his hospital bedside.

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USDP member and former mayor of Rangoon, Aung Thein Linn, said, “From what I heard, a blood vessel ruptured in his brain. This morning, some [central executive committee] members and I went to see him and were told he had lost consciousness around 11pm last night after he had gone to bed complaining about a headache.”

Aung Thaung and his family are among the wealthiest families in the country with numerous business interests in the country, including building material firms Aung Yee Phyo Company and IGE Company. A license to establish a private bank, United Amara Bank, was granted in his son’s name, Nay Aung, in 2010.

Last year, the United States Treasury added him to its blacklist, barring him from business with American firms.

In August 2012, DVB conducted an interview with Aung Thaung about Burma’s reform process and the state of its finance sector.