Anyone else believe Thailand has had it (STEM R&D)?

[Jenkins9039]

Bit of a background, resided in Thailand for a decade, from a research & development point of view, the calibre here in the Universities is high, a few years back my company commenced a 8 figure investment in Thailand (Phuket), and neighbouring countries (Indo/Indi).

 

Understand this was salaries wise with each from 35-180,000 a month salaries for post-grad (experience 2+ yrs real-world) alongside numerous universities sending their kids to us to gain real-world experience and first hand experience in the specific STEM side we research in.

 

In November I was in East Africa wrapping up a contract for various expansions there (ZA, K) and noticed Corona appear on my radar, at the time, i said this is going to snowball, Immediately flew to Europe, having spoken with the Government about the Medical systems there (reason in part for being there), slowly shed some of the weight over in Thailand, mainly fringe staff that were not really in the game, and over the past 9 months have seen the economic calamities enacted by the government, I understand there is a virus killing people, I fully support respective lockdowns, what i did not expect was the the instability of making direct decisions and backing those decisions up with protections for organisations (bare in mind I've dealt with the Government at all levels and even had a division asking to utilise our technologies for gene processing), an example of some of the areas that I've found un-workable.

 

The complete lockdown of Phuket, we had a system that had to be manned 24/7, something that is very hard when staff are locked in different districts or even off the island, don't get me wrong the Government gave us a Pass to bypass all locked areas, for one person..., hardly useful when you have 1m$ machine that has a life of its own, and could run into issues at any given time, and did, this prompted me to close the site down, and slowly dismantle it over the past month re-establishing locally as a personal research system, and shipping the rest to ZA, whilst laying all the staff off (paid in full and terminated with full benefits), essentially pulling the business out of Thailand concentrating to what I would put down as utter chaotic management (local) of the situation. 

 

Another issue, is (as you look through my prior posts) the instability around visa's etc, been a longterm visa holder, with Corona, flew in with Visa-Exempt as my visa was due to be renewed in Africa, got out of there quickly, could not renew in Europe and / Middle East due to non resident (homeowner in location does not count) some new rule that came in during the early corona outbreak, now jumping through hoops etc here, could go to Europe but wive's 5yr visa expires in Sep and they're not issuing new visa's currently.

 

After all these years, the money lost in $ value, is irrelevant, in fact, already recovered, its just somewhat ludicrous that the damage for the most part could have been adverted by miss-management, or rather ad hoc management, and this tambon lockdown instead of like what Bangkok had.

 

 

 

 

[DaftToPutRealName]

Yes, it's quite clear that they have no idea how to support external investment or what drives multinationals and startups to come to Thailand outside of "oh, it's cheap" (it really isn't when you add up the cost of all the cultural issues and reliability of locals).

We've already seen the exodus to Vietnam and I would probably jump ship there as well given better tech infrastructure.

Things were going downhill prior to the Chinese Flu but now it's a perfect storm of excuses and has highlighted the major flaw in Thai culture - everything is great when everything is great, but they need a committee to decide a committee to oversee a committee whenever anything goes wrong; if you're dealing with time critical infrastructure then; sorry - too bad, so sad!

Now imagine all the executives who can't get here on-shore, or those who are forced to stay locally on a multi entry visa who now have overstayed their 90 day permission and all the added costs of now having to extend those out to yearly visas and throw away the value of their existing visa -- just ONE such problem that should be easily solved but would require someone to actually be proactive and consider the costs to companies and what that means for the bean counter's opinions on outsourcing in the future.

I have yet to see ANY value outside of slightly cheaper office fit-outs that justify the head-ache of trying to make things work in an economy and country that actively keeps itself 20 years behind. It really sucks for the handful of smart cookies who have the potential to lead financial and tech services.
 

[geriatrickid]

How  about some transparency and full disclosure please.

I doubt that you went to Thailand because of the  intellectual assets or the quality of infrastructure. It seems more plausible that you located to Thailand because the jurisdiction allowed activity that would have not been allowed in some of the jurisdictions known for their STEM R&D. Thailand  is not considered a world leader in STEM R&D.  Perhaps, the  Thai attitude in respect to your operations reflected  the nature of the activity. It is wonderful that you had an expensive piece of equipment. However, we live in an age where electron microscopes sell for US $1 million and basic fluorescence microscopes cost US$15,000.  If you want to play with genome editing and CRISPR technology, you have to  pay for the equipment.  

 

In respect to ongoing clinical trials in Thailand, they are ongoing. No one has pulled out. Lots of  subjects, and lots of chronic disease. Hundreds of ongoing trials, the majority of which are Phase III and IV which require significant outlay in resources.

[Jenkins9039]

24 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

How  about some transparency and full disclosure please.

I doubt that you went to Thailand because of the  intellectual assets or the quality of infrastructure. It seems more plausible that you located to Thailand because the jurisdiction allowed activity that would have not been allowed in some of the jurisdictions known for their STEM R&D. Thailand  is not considered a world leader in STEM R&D.  Perhaps, the  Thai attitude in respect to your operations reflected  the nature of the activity. It is wonderful that you had an expensive piece of equipment. However, we live in an age where electron microscopes sell for US $1 million and basic fluorescence microscopes cost US$15,000.  If you want to play with genome editing and CRISPR technology, you have to  pay for the equipment.  

 

In respect to ongoing clinical trials in Thailand, they are ongoing. No one has pulled out. Lots of  subjects, and lots of chronic disease. Hundreds of ongoing trials, the majority of which are Phase III and IV which require significant outlay in resources.

Thailand is just 'one site', we have sites in India, Indonesia, South Africa (Kenya) with operations in Europe.

 

I won't be giving any more information than this, as this is my personal account and I am well documented in the press/media, and would rather not have my personal posts become discussion points for my commercial activities.

 

STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

The Thai attitude, as you mention was one of openness, (BOI, Government, International Stage), we don't deal in microscopes.

We are not in clinical trials, This is not medical, though the Government were pushing to utilise our systems, but due to my Nationality this could not be completed, they were however used by the Nation i am a citizen of for cluster research around Corona.