Hi All.

I have prepared cash flows,5 and 1 yr business plan and I will probably have to submit these to the BOI for consideration.

The plans and cashflow, however, are based on a worst case scenario (I.E highest quoted costs of formation, highest quoted office fees, 2 (UK AND Thai) accountancy, non-promotional tax etc).

Should I modify this to a more realistic breakdown based on - for example - the Ministry Of Commerce formation charges, 1 (either Uk OR Thai) accountancy and the "probable" BOI tax promotions????

BOI people won't pay attention the most to the cash flow analysis or any ROI, ROE, Cost/Benefit ratio or any financial ratio. Because the BOI won’t provide financial support to the applicants, BOI will pay attention to the marketing side and how your project help Thailand development in economic.

The history of the project key person, the market size, the product strategy map, the value chain in the industry, the five competitive forces as Porter’s model, and how your project help new business opportunities in Thailand are the most importance to the BOI.

Since your project has been approve, other project like yours, come to BOI at the later time, are likely to be rejected if there are no more room in the market.

I don't really know how this would fit in with Thailands general business policies apart from creating local work. Certainly no Thai suppliers would benfit due to the constraints placed by my customers. I seem to be cought in a no-mans land between the UK and Thailand. My UK customers do not want to work with a foreign company (but I have convinced them) and the Thai goverment seem to work through agencies making it virtually impossible (I cannot convince them because I cannot get near them!).

To be honest, I am seeing little difference between all the accountants,lawyers etc and the BOI. Everyone does the same thing only the BOI takes longer! And I havn't even got onto Labor Laws yet!

It seems the old saying of "It's not what you know. It's who you know" is even more true in Thailand than the UK. However. I know no-one. So my only recourse is to find out myself how everything works and use that to separate the wheat from the chaff.