wordchild

https://www.ft.com/content/f280de11-48c7-4526-aa92-ad1e1b7b6ed1 Interesting article in todays Financial Times. Its headed "The Untold Story of the Worlds Strongest Currency" and its about the Thai Baht! I am not sure if its behind their paywall, but the gist of the article is that vs the USD since the Asian financial crisis , only the Swiss Franc (of all the worlds major currencies) has performed better than the Baht. The author then gives his views as to why that has been the case. Personally i would take issue with some of what he says but its worth a read.

Or if you are staying North of the town La Baguette, somewhere around soi 43/45 on Petkasem, also a fav with the local expats. Opens around 7-30 , used to be great maybe expanded too much in recent years and the quality is not quite what it was. Just my opinion!

Morning bread Soi 94 , 1 soi (before) Bangkok Hospital going South from central HH. Great for eggs and bacon (and sausage) and fresh baked bread. Opens 7 am, about 200 Mtrs into soi 94 off Petkasem. A fav spot for the local farangs

Another factor to bear in mind is that VAT is levied on the car purchase price (or at least used to be) when a (2nd hand ) car is bought through a dealer, using finance, no VAT if it is a cash purchase (so i believe) . I am not really sure what the situation is if the buyer purchases the car and then subsequently arranges their own finance on the vehicle. I am guessing that if a vehicle is financed, then the VAT total is added to the loan amount , but really not sure about this. From my experience most Thais (other nationalities as well) don't focus on the total loan amount, they just care about the monthly costs.

One of the buyers I sold too wanted to use finance, it was no particular issue. The buyer was a good credit and was able to arrange himself. As far as I remember, it took a little longer than the other (cash) sales , and more paperwork was required. Also , as I remember, the sale was structured slightly different , but nothing that posed a major issue. I think it’s a bit of a myth that the dealers can offer “finance”, they can’t. Only the banks offer the finance, the dealers may have good bank contacts and (maybe) able to smooth things along a little , but, from what I have seen , that is about it. The major 2/3 banks involved in car finance in Thailand ( Thanachart being no 1), are extremely professional, with huge databases ,likely incl sales values down the chain of ownership and probably covering pretty much every car and model year ever sold in Thailand. They know more about real car values than anyone, and they know how to assess the risk. As long as the buyer is a reasonable credit prospect I don’t see why it should be especially more difficult for them to obtain finance for a “private “ purchase as opposed to buying through a dealer.

As far as i am aware not possible (anymore) to import (legally!) a car that was previously registered/owned outside Thailand. [The car i referred to in my post had been originally owned, by me, in the UK.] I think most/all the various loopholes have now been closed.

Bearing in mind the significant tax element in any new car purchase here (especially for imported brands), the depreciation should be pretty high. My impression is that the market was reasonably ok until 3/4 years ago but has got more difficult in recent years. so price expectations need to adjust.

sold 4 cars over the last 10 years or so. 3 were low mileage, popular brands, sold easily at what i considered to be fair prices, sold to private buyers via online mktg. Funnily enough one sold via Thai Visa to another Farang Thai resident. I dont know if Thai visa (or whatever they now call themselves) still offer that service but i put the car on the site , without any great expectations, sold within a month. The 4th car was very different, it was a very special/unusual car that i had imported originally from the UK (when you could still do that) it had been well maintained but was over 10 years old with high mileage. sold that to an enthusiast who was a member of the Thai Owners Club for that brand. we were put in contact with each other by the garage who had maintained the car for me over a number of years. Also got a pretty good price for that because of the comfort the buyer got from the maintenance history. Actually on that occasion,more important than the price, was the fact that the car was going to a genuine enthusiast for the brand. In summary i would say selling used cars in Thailand pretty much the same as anywhere else; offer a low mileage, in demand, car at a fair price and you will likely sell it reasonably easily.

For International (or expat!) investors simply focusing on the performance of UK shares as reflected in a Sterling based index is not really that helpful. one should also take into account the weakness of sterling against eg the USD over many years. If the FTSE index is restated in USD, then the current level is still 9% below the recent high which was in Feb 2022, ahead of the invasion of Ukraine, and (also restated in USD) the index is an incredible 32% below its level in November 2007. To be fair, the FTSE index does not include dividends. So if one looks instead at the FTSE Total Return, which does include dividends and again stated in USD, then that index is 6% below the level in Feb 2022 and 11% above its level in November 2007. So an investor simply buying and holding the FTSE in 2007 would be sitting on a pretty measly 11% total return (including dividends received) over the last 15+ years. Again i have stated everything in USD. None of this makes me anti UK investing (quite the opposite) as I feel there are a number of high quality and undervalued companies within the FTSE. It is though, a reminder, that as an expat investor one needs to consider currency exposure. I was advised many years ago, when i first worked overseas, to forget about sterling and use the dollar to monitor and measure investment performance. It was good advice and is (i feel) a useful discipline.

My understanding is that the standard 5 year licence is still valid for upto 12 months AFTER the expiry date. I certainly renewed my last one several months after the expiry date and without any issue. It may also suit , in terms of the length of the validity, of your new licence, for you to wait until after the stated expiry date.

of course it is always right to be cautious, (because things can change) and get specialist advice if you have concerns. it also depends on your situation in Thailand; ie expat retirees who receive pension income from abroad- probably not worth worrying too much about this. For those of us who work and file taxes in Thailand it is a different matter. Personally i think it is well worth paying for specialist (local) tax advice. Most people who work here do this, from my experience.

Fwiw , in the distant past, I had parts of the law translated line by line and explained to me by a Thai tax lawyer and, unfortunately,(as far as I remember) there is no single passage that one could quote that makes the exemption on (prior year) overseas income clear and explicit. As was explained to me then, the reason such income is not taxable is because it falls outside the definition of what constitutes Thai taxable income. Also some of the subtlety (of this definition) gets lost when translated from Thai. Income earned outside the Thai tax system in prior tax years is not regarded as income ,that could be taxed , rather it it is regarded as now being capital that was earned in the past ie so no longer subject to current year taxation. Actually it is in the countries interest that this capital can come back into Thailand rather than being held offshore. Also remember it is not just a narrow group of expats who have benefited from this treatment: major Thai corporations and wealthy Thai individuals also benefit from the treatment. There are plenty of excellent summaries of the situation by the likes of PWC et al.

i am not sure if it is relevant for the OP but, from my experience, it is much easier to transfer out securities (ie bonds or shares) than cash. If you have an investment account with a Thai broker it is relatively straightforward to instruct them to transfer the securities (and even the cash within the account!) from that account to another account overseas eg in Europe. As long as the account you are transferring too is in your name I have done this myself on 4 or 5 occasions, without issue, moving both single stocks and on one occasion an entire portfolio (which included some cash) . Sign a couple of forms, complete the relevant details and it can all be done over a couple of days, and your assets are now outside Thailand. It is one reason i maintain an account with a local broker for investing in local stocks, it also has other uses! From my experience the local brokers and, even those that are linked to banks are much more user friendly and flexible than the bank branches. One word of caution; i am an established customer of the local broker i use; I would be cautious about opening a broking account as a device just to move funds outside Thailand. You may have issues with the local money laundering Feds. But for the OP if this is a "one and done" moving your asset out of Thailand and, you are confident you can explain the source of funds, if required, then this maybe something worth exploring.

Yes i have come across this before (a few years ago) , and it is one reason (among others) that i closed the FCD account I had then. I was told by my (Thai) bank that i could not transfer USD directly from my FCD account to my Singapore bank (USD) account. Instead I would have to transfer my USD back to my Thai Baht account and then do a further currency transaction (back into USD!) to get the funds out and send to Sing. The reason i was given, was that otherwise the bank would lose the ability to make any money from the currency exchange. The Bank officer explained that with a completely straight face! As i said, this was several years ago, so maybe things have changed, but from my experience FCD accounts with Thai banks are expensive to operate and of limited use. Better hold non TB assets offshore from Thailand; eg with my Singapore multi-currency account i can transfer funds anywhere, with minimal fuss, in the currency of my choice, without the need to suffer the additional cost of a currency exchange.

depends on employer, but a number of international corporates pay non Thai staff a proportion of salary (or eg their annual bonus) outside Thailand, eg to an account in a tax friendly jurisdiction. sometimes this is dressed up as "consultancy fees" for another part of the business. I know it sounds dodgy but it is a fairly widespread practice and has been for many years.

FWIW I think most of the damage to markets in 2022, was caused by the air coming out of what had been clearly overvalued US tech stocks. Added to this was the war in Ukraine which gave confidence another kicking and also pushed up the price of oil (and the USD initially) and therefor led to higher inflation expectations around the world. Staying away from the US and tilting your portfolio toward value and dividends worked ok in 2022, it was hard to make money (esp against the USD) , but it kept you out of serious trouble. I feel the same approach will work even better in 2023. Plenty of cheap , good quality companies, paying reasonable dividends to be found in markets around the world eg Europe (incl UK), Australia, NZ, China, HK, Singapore and even in Thailand! Many commentators seem to be taking a cautious view of the year ahead. The more evidence i see of prevailing bearishness the more optimistic i find myself feeling.

sorry, i am just not up to date on all that; it is some years (5 plus) since i opened these accounts. I dont remember any particular difficulty with opening but the direction of travel is for all these things to have got more difficult in recent times.

1) OCBC Securities (in Sing) is a good option, direct market dealing for most major markets eg UK,US,Euro,Aus,HK, Sing and even Thai plus a number of other markets. I have also used Boom in HK and Asia Plus in Thailand, both of these also pretty good with a wide range of markets covered. 2) yes, you can do a crossborder single share or portfolio transfer, i have done this, myself, a number of times from UK to Sing , from Uk to Thai and from Thai to Sing. Once you have the account open just inform both sides what you wish to do, there will be a couple of forms to sign but it should be pretty straightforward. Incidentally transferring a share portfolio or single company holding out of Thailand is a very simple way to get significant sums out of Thailand, (at least for a non-Thai), certainly much easier and less bureaucratic than transferring out large sums of cash.

Negotiate a little ( 100 bt maximum should get you anywhere in HH) Or , wait for one of the busses along Petkasem.

I used Asia Tigers for my relocation here 13 years. at that time AT had a rather formidable lady who dealt with all transfer in issues , ie customs etc. I had a meeting with her , prior to my move, extremely helpful and an impressive lady (seemed to know everybody!) Suggested a few ways to deal with Thai Customs and , likely, saved me a fair bit of money.Probably she retired by now but ,overall, v impressed with the service I got from the whole team there.

some good recommendations already. For many years i have used a photo and copy shop on soi 23 (SUK) about 30 mtrs down on the left. So close to BTS Asoke. cant remember the name but confident you will see it if you walk down the soi. If you get to soi cowboy you have passed it so go back, before you forget what you came for! Always done a good job for me and other members of family incl providing the digitally formatted photos as now required by our country. Prices very reasonable and nice people

How old is your daughter? In general, contacts are not recommended until early teens for most kids. They need to learn how to take care of them properly! Why contacts not glasses? Glasses = less fuss, less expense etc. Let them move onto contacts when they are older and also when their sight issues have stabilized (this takes time) ie late teens. Personally i am not very trusting of commercial Thai optician shops, hard to find good ones and most put profits way ahead of what is right for the kid. Is there a good eye hospital in your area? I have always found Ruitinin in Bangkok to be excellent. They have a team of specialist pediatric eye doctors and the facilities (and the doctors) are excellent.

This is a major issue: and I have experienced similar. I used to stop as a matter of course even when people were just waiting to cross as opposed to actually on the crossing. I found this caused hazard and risks both for me and the pedestrian. 1) other drivers following behind do not expect you to stop and I nearly got rear-ended on a couple of occasions. 2) drivers in other lanes (and especially motorcycles) don’t usually bother to stop without good reason and pedestrians don’t always exercise the necessary caution , just because one lane stops for you it doesn’t mean that other lanes will as well. On more than one occasion I have seen pedestrians come close to being knocked over by speeding vehicles in other lanes after I have stopped for them. I now will only stop when the road looks pretty clear behind and to the side or when slow moving traffic makes it safe for all concerned

As long as the property owner operates within the law then it is THEIR property and it is up to THEM! Do you not understand THAT? So far, there is no (Thai) law that prevents a private business from making its own rules as regards to mask wearing. If a private business (or property owner) wishes to retain a mask requirement for patrons then they are entirely within their rights. You , also, are within your rights, to go elsewhere. But the law does not give YOU the right to challenge or ignore THEIR rules.

a few years ago the manager of my Bangkok Bank branch told me that a number of branches were designated as "farang friendly" (my words not hers). According to her, these branches had a higher proportion of English speaking staff and the staff were trained to deal with foreigner's likely requirements. From memory she mentioned Nana branch (top of Suk soi 8), Emporium , Ploenchit (next to BTS). There were a few others incl Head Office on Silom. I have no idea if they still operate the same system but probably worth starting with one of these.