bkkandrew

Are they changing the playing rules only for "foreign companies - operating here -" ???

Or are farang private investors affected as well ??

If that's a fact, we who have set up a legal business in a Co.Ltd. really are in BIG trouble - and it will be almost impossible to sell our businesses to make a restart in a more farang friendly country !!!!! Which I'm definitely considering looking back on the development here during the last months.

Of course it applies to all sizes of business, those trading and those not, such as those set-up to "own" property or other assets. You should know if you have lost 51% of it in an hour or so...

Still no news yet, but the signs don't look good. The Nation reports:

Finance Ministry to press ahead with foreign business laws

Finance Ministry has vowed to press ahead with legal change that could overhaul the way foreign companies do business here despite warnings of potentially disastrous economic fallout.

(My bold)

Unfortunately the link for the full story then error reports:

Warning: mysql_connect(): Too many connections in /backup/content2/nationmultimedia/libs/classes/db/Db.Class.php on line 42

Too many connections

I guess that foreign investors of all sizes are really interested in this. Watch for market mahem???

I asked these questions a couple of years ago on this forum.

Should still be hear somewhere.

If you search " Mahasarakham " in the little Google box at the top it should come.

The best post I have ever seen from anybody regarding this subject was from Ray23 and it is really worth reading.

Although it wasnt quite the same for me ( the wife told them that I was a private person and it worked a treat ) Ray23 knows a lot about this stuff and he tells it straight.

You have just made me smile, as I remember the first Isaan trip - to Mahasarakham!!!!

At the time (about 4 years ago) I googled it and there was only one page - that of a bloke that had a puncture on his bicycle and was forced to stop there unscheduled.

I was perturbed, but made the trip and had a great 2001/2 New years (I think)...

Section 16. Foreigners applying for a license shall have the following qualification and shall not have the prohibited characteristics below:

(1) Being not younger than 20 years old.

(2) Having residency or being permitted to temporarily enter into Thailand under the immigration law.

(3) Being neither incompetent nor quasi-incompetent.

(4) Not being a bankrupt.

Section 16 para (3) of Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999) - Shame the rule does not apply to the Govenment

Wish rule (3) could also be applied to Thais wanting to run businesses...

I've forgiven you that muppet call you made already

I actually rather like the Muppet Show..

I just wish there was a way of blocking out the oppressive product placement / in-show advertising and the "bling" and "kapow" noises that seem to be added to every onscreen movement of prime time Thai TV.

It really is lowest common denominator stuff and of no value at all. There are some good imported documentories and the thai travel progs are getting better, but I am quite happy when the TV signal does down

If they edited out those, along with everything else, the signal would be off...

Section 16. Foreigners applying for a license shall have the following qualification and shall not have the prohibited characteristics below:

(1) Being not younger than 20 years old.

(2) Having residency or being permitted to temporarily enter into Thailand under the immigration law.

(3) Being neither incompetent nor quasi-incompetent.

(4) Not being a bankrupt.

Section 16 para (3) of Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999) - Shame the rule does not apply to the Govenment

Wish rule (3) could also be applied to Thais wanting to run businesses...

Breaking news.

The Finance minister this morning, before the meeting of Cabinet about amemdement of Foreign Business Act.

"Why should we withdraw it? They have not yet seen the details. If they had seen the details, I am sure that they would be happy,'' M.R. Pridiyathorn told reporters.

"Why should we postpone it when we have worked on it for three months. This is Thailand,'' he added.

I have held talks with many investors but they have not seen all of the details and the commerce minister cannot disclose the bill before the cabinet gives its approval,'' he said.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/b...s.php?id=115859

Who are these "M.R." and "M.L." people in the upper echelons of Thai society, btw?

Seems that globalisation is backing Thailand into a corner to protect the status quo of its unfair and exploitative business practises. So expect more knee-jerk protectionism from the people trying desperately to cling on to the gravy train. The phrase; "This is Thailand" has never been used in any sensible business plan.

Indeed, it is usually the turn of phrase of ferrang to explain away another Peculiar Thai situation or decision...

Think we may have been right on that one all along!!!

Yes, just noticed the draw

Also, just noticed the Newcastle game is on Thai TV, channel 3 on Sunday, as well as UBC..

Foreign investors delaying their buying? They are being prevented by new rules on company formation/nominees, witholding taxes and visa regulations (buy it but don't come here)..

Why should Thai government make it easy for foreigners to form small bussiness and claim residency in Thailand? Any western country and most of the asian countries have more strict policy, why should Thai makes it easy?...just because you like to move to Thailand?

If I were the Thai goverment, I would do the same thing, I welcome big corporation investment, but I kick out those individuals who buy/form small bussiness (many of them are one or two men shops) only for the purpose of living in Thailand. Try do this in the U.S. or any other western country, they will laugh at you...

If you bothered reading the original OP, together with the accompanying article, you would realise that the Thai analyist was bemoaning the "delay" is foreign investment...

My comment was based on that.

Moral - if you don't want people at your party, don't invite them!

Now 35.68...

Yes but it is 1am in Thailand.... Just wait till after Doctor Tarisa has had her morning coffee...

Well, long after her nightcap when NY is about to close, the rate has gone to 35.60...

Maybe she needs some Pro Plus to stay up in the wee hours to fight her good fight...

I have no legal right to be in Thailand; I have never had any legal right to be in Thailand. But the past seventeen years I have been allowed to live in Thailand and love the Thai people. I learned to sing the nation anthem because the government allowed me to live here with the people I love. Now I must find a new song to sing; The Thai government says I must go away.

So why don't you get married and get legal? You've said that you lived here for the last seventeen years illegally, so why is it the Thai authorities fault that you have to leave? Can you answer those two questions for me please? I cant really take this seriously.

The guy was online when I posted my question, now he's not. Why are you answering it for him? There's more to this than meets the eye. He has started a debate that really has only two possible viewpoints and one inevitable conclusion.

I was online a few minutes ago and typing my reply when the page disappeared. To err is human, to really screw up is computer.

I have been a tourist, legally, for most of the seventeen years. But I know that, even as a tourist, I have no **right** to be here. They say "go", I have to go, and I will go.

If you speak of the letter of the law, then I was a legal tourist according to the letter of the law. If you speak of the spirit of the law, then supporting a Thai family counts to the spirit of the law.

I posted here for two reasons. First, I think that there are a lot of farangs in Thailand in similar situations. The blanket concept that all permanent tourists are bad is incorrect.

The second reason is that I suspect the immigration police monitor this web site. I'm not asking for help for me. I'm asking for help for all the families of the "permanent tourists". How many farang men support a lady and her parents and maybe a leftover child from her earlier mistake? How many Thai citizens are directly and immediately benefitting from a "permanent tourist" living here?

There is no question in my mind that my presence here in Thailand has been and is of benefit to the Thai people and to the Thai nation. I would be ashamed if that were not true. But the immigration police do not seem to consider that factor at all. I could probably come up with a petition signed by every policeman in my Thai home town, asking that I be allowed to stay, but that too is irrelevant.

I hope that this post will cause some thinking in the right places. The law does not apply to my situation. WHY NOT? If I am bad, throw me out - please. If I am good, then the law is flawed. For the sake of our in-laws and girlfriends and children and friends, please fix it.

Robski should read your post and re-read your original OP...

And then hang his head in shame...

as i mentioned elsewhere

if this new law requires a company to re-allocate the voting rights,

as was being talked about,

any foreigner holding land and/or property via a company,

will find that he now effectively only "owns" 49%

and the thai directors can vote to sell it or anything else.

pretty scary

I recall talking about four years ago to a friend thinking of investing in property, using a nominee type company to do this. I cautioned him about that it was against the spirit of the law govening ownership and that one fine day, this scenario may come to pass. He didn't buy, tomorrow may find out many people and my friend will no doubt buy me a beer

Well he has missed out and you owe him a few baht I would say.

As property gone up more than 100% here in the past 4 years, if he bought back then for a million, valued it now at 2 million give the thai shareholders 51 percent he has just about broken even.

Prices have more than doublen where I live in the past two years, so please leave out the told you so's.

What day? Nothings happend and even if they proceed, the nightmare of taking 14,000 businesses to court or processing them and robbing them of land shareholdings etc. in the full glare if the intenational press will never happen. They would bankrupt the country before they take over a single rai. The Courts would be tied up for years, even then nobody would leave so it would have to be done forcefully. Tie the police up evicting elderly falangs, god forbid that they should injure a foreign pensioner dragging him out of his home! and whose left to stop the bombers!

No fight as gone up yet as nobody believes it will be pursued, certainly not retroactively. Should it happen, there will be the most enormous fight. Think anybody here is going to let them take our livelihoods away withou a fight.

No way mate, no way. I've been here 15 years and if I gave up half my house, I'd still walk away with more than I came with! Think of the rent I've saved as well! Were not the mugs you smug posters think.

Well, if you or any of the other 'type first and engage brain later' muppets had bothered to consider what my friend may have done with his money that may now make him want to buy me a beer, you would not have spouted such B/S.

He was proposing to sell his house in UK (rise - about 50% in four years and generated some 28000GBP in rental income) to buy in Thailand. Oh yes - Thailand, where there has been a property price increase but now you are faced with the stark facts that the rules appertaining to property ownership (in force for 100+ years) are now to be enforced and you have to give up what you have bought. So yes - he is happy indeed!

Rather less happy will be the whining, oh there is 14000 of us, so they can't touch us brigade, who find out that this is not their country and they have to play by other people's rules, however unfair. For you I have one message - there are a good deal many more people affected every day by the latest rules on matters such as visas, drinking hours (passim), advertisments, media content, currency movements, etc. etc. and their sheer weight of numbers mattered not one jot when it came to the Thai Authorities making and enforcing their decisions...

It is in Thailand's best interests, now, to de-couple itself from use of foreign capital, and to 'encourage' foreign capitalists to take their speculations elsewhere.

Well, is starting a company in Thailand and training people 'speculation' in your view?

There is a lot more to a well functioning economy than controlling fuel. If there is something we know, countries that isolate themselves from the outside world do very poorly. Take a trip to North Korea and have look. By contrast, the 'Asian miracle' came from trading with foreigners. Is what we are seing here the beginning of the 'Thai disaster'? I certainly hope not, but there is a downward spiral at the moment, no doubt.

By the way where did fuel come into this?

Oh don't worry - Martin can manage to bring the irrelivant into almost any topic..

I have no legal right to be in Thailand; I have never had any legal right to be in Thailand. But the past seventeen years I have been allowed to live in Thailand and love the Thai people. I learned to sing the nation anthem because the government allowed me to live here with the people I love. Now I must find a new song to sing; The Thai government says I must go away.

So why don't you get married and get legal? You've said that you lived here for the last seventeen years illegally, so why is it the Thai authorities fault that you have to leave? Can you answer those two questions for me please? I cant really take this seriously.

As far as I read he is legal and always has been legal, he has stayed here within the law, a law that allowed him to stay as a tourist.

The smart thing to do 17 years ago would have been to consider that the day may come and not have done what you did. That said, now you and your child are in this situation you should get yourself a good lawyer and fight to stay or take your child with you. I only say this for your child and not for you. The reason is the law says you shouldn't be here and so be it.

Easy to say, how can anyone predict what is going to happen 17 years from now, there have been numerous goverments and half a dozen coups in the last 17 years. He did even get married at one point although as another contributer has said with the recent changes even that doesn't help much. If I'd have known what was happening now 17 years ago I'd be a millionaire now.

The guy was online when I posted my question, now he's not. Why are you answering it for him? There's more to this than meets the eye. He has started a debate that really has only two possible viewpoints and one inevitable conclusion.

Looks like you are picking a fight for no good reason. Its a shame you pick on someone who obviously is not feeling his best...

Some research was done on this scenario in London a few years ago, where they sent out some people, who pretended not to speak English ("Solly, no speakee Ingrit") to buy simple things like a can of pepsi from a street vendor, and many of them were overcharged. I'm not excusing it here, just making the point that its not unique to Thailand.

And you know the Black Cab drivers love a foreign tourist as well.

By the way, I took out my wallet to pay the 400 baht National Park fee on Koh Samet the other day, and when the official saw my Thai Driver's Licence he only charged me 40 baht. Good for me, but the tourist friends I was with were mightily p****ed off with it!

With enough people you are better taking the speedboat over there, drops you right off on the beach and you don't have to pay entrance fees that way.

Unless you get stopped right on the beach by the park officials. They are on the look out.

Not at night. Never been stopped disembarking at night...

as i mentioned elsewhere

if this new law requires a company to re-allocate the voting rights,

as was being talked about,

any foreigner holding land and/or property via a company,

will find that he now effectively only "owns" 49%

and the thai directors can vote to sell it or anything else.

pretty scary

I recall talking about four years ago to a friend thinking of investing in property, using a nominee type company to do this. I cautioned him about that it was against the spirit of the law govening ownership and that one fine day, this scenario may come to pass. He didn't buy, tomorrow may find out many people and my friend will no doubt buy me a beer

Just another rich guy looking for a cheep <deleted>>.

I'd agree, and it is just a bit offputting that he will hold her salary while expecting her to be not only a maid but also a very cheap hooker. He has total control of her and that is a worry.

You would probably worry about the sky falling in! What a load of nonsense...

Advice:

Chill out, get some sleep and "worry" about important things, rather than what might, or might not, be implied in job advertisments in an asian paper...

I'm far from worried about it, bkkandrew and my sleeping patterns are fine . . . on the other hand if you find someone vicing their opinion on an open forum irksome then possibly you should chill out and worry about the important things in life . . . like what might or might not be implied in ads. Oh, I forgot . . . that's what the topic was about or did you not catch that? Not enough sleep?

what is implied or not in the advert is certainly not high on my list of important things in life. nobody is being forced to take the job. thank god there are still places in the world where you dont have to be politically correct. if the guy wants a live in maid/ sex toy up to him.

Precisely...

"Left unaddressed, diminished foreign investor confidence will lower Thailand's economic prospects and weaken a key support for its creditworthiness."

and will the powers to be take any notice of this ( dare I say gentle ) warning ?

I doubt they will understand it until it happens, then they will lauch another crazy sceme to address the results....

Interesting thread, which confirmed some things and showed me some others.

My attitude is that there's obviosuly going to be a power struggle going on for at least a year minimum, assuming they do produce a workable constitution and do hold democratic elections and they do result in a credible government. Some power source will control that government, and that will have some effects, but it's too early to say what, I think.

As for investing in Thailand, I looked into it a while back but the property nominee stuff scared me off, since I figured it was basically a scam and eventually some govt. would stop turning a blind eye and decide to clean it up, which would cause a lot of problems for a lot of people. Unfortunately, Thaksin's Shin deal has cruelled it for a lot of people. Plus, why would you pay 100% to only get 49% ownership of anything? Crazy.

That only leaves condos as a viable alternative, but they seem to be overpriced. I would be buying for accommodation, not for speculation.

Observing the real estate market reveals heaps of empty, unsaleable properties whose prices are falling. WIll they keep falling? If the political uncertainty continues, yes. How long? Who knows.

So I'll be applying a very large does of "buyer beware" for the medium term future, at least.

Good and thoughtful post... Wish some powers-that-be would read it and call a halt to their mad schemes...

Why not withdraw it in cash in your home country and then shovel it manually down a drain? It would cut out the stress of discovering all the ways you will lose your "investment" when you arrive here...

Seems like the Baht exchange rate is being set at 36 to the Dollar.

I assume this is BOT policy?

I wonder how long they have currency reserves to keep it up?

What is strange is why BOT needs to do it at all - you would think after the latest turmoil that people would be getting rid of their Baht....

It does appear that the BOT is making 36 a ceiling for the baht. I'm sure they won't object if the baht were to weak to 37.

Well, if they are they are not making a good job of it. As soon as London opened it is trading at 35.75...

Dear Bkk Andrew...give them time ! Even during the '92 ERM crisis, the Bank of England fell behind with their intervention as trading was so frantic ! [Towards the debacle's end the BOE even decided that intervention only take place during UK banking hours.!!]

Now 35.68...

When will they work out that it is the USD that is having the bad day and that no-one in a forex dealing room has the THB position even otheir screen!!

Really reminds me of the preposterous maps published by some myopic Americans that put the USA at the centre of the World!!

Seems like the Baht exchange rate is being set at 36 to the Dollar.

I assume this is BOT policy?

I wonder how long they have currency reserves to keep it up?

What is strange is why BOT needs to do it at all - you would think after the latest turmoil that people would be getting rid of their Baht....

It does appear that the BOT is making 36 a ceiling for the baht. I'm sure they won't object if the baht were to weak to 37.

Well, if they are they are not making a good job of it. As soon as London opened it is trading at 35.75...

Just another rich guy looking for a cheep <deleted>>.

I'd agree, and it is just a bit offputting that he will hold her salary while expecting her to be not only a maid but also a very cheap hooker. He has total control of her and that is a worry.

You would probably worry about the sky falling in! What a load of nonsense...

Advice:

Chill out, get some sleep and "worry" about important things, rather than what might, or might not, be implied in job advertisments in an asian paper...

Well, I noted that on the 5th (when I flew from Udon to BKK) at both ends they were opening all bags going into the airports... Is this part of the security measures? Is it still continuing?

Is it just me, or does the whole exercise smack of a sycophantic load of twaddle? 100+ people with more money than sense going on a pointless, global warming trip,

//section deleted//

with nothing better to do with his time?

Or am I being harsh?

No, just a bit, hmm... "naive"...

In which way?