No More Dependent Extension Of Stay If The Host Foreigner Has A Retirement Extension Of Stay Permit

[wolfmanjack]

Those numbers come form the statistical office of thailand and are supposedly for the whole kingdom but are for 1999. According to the BBC article that stated there are 41,000 british retirees residing in thailand this would mean these numbers are multiplied by many times over.

The original question was regarding “resident aliens.”

The data is a few years old, but it’s also entirely possible that 41k left the UK to retire to LOS, but a much smaller number made it on the books as resident aliens. Maybe they’re teaching English illegally and trying to fly under the radar, maybe some are visa runners, maybe some took off to Cambodia, and so on...

As you said this is for resident aliens that made it on the books. Also this data is from 2005 or 2006 I don't remember which while the statistics office stats quoted were from 1999. My assertion is that there are many more of us here than what shows up on the books or in a census. I can honestly state that a census taker has never showed up at my house and i am not on the books at the local office. The data for the brits was based on where their social security checks were sent to. Maybe some of them have their checks sent to thailand and they live in cambodia, i can't say. Simon claims he ahs the numbers but won't give more than a hint at what they are and they might not include visa runners which would probably be included in the number of tourists instead.

[idle44mins]

Please tell me where I can find this information..............if it is the police order (attached to the article on the ThaiVisa.com homepage): a dependent visa is still allowed and a map is only required for the applicants of an extention of a non-immigrant B (icm WP).

As stated in post one - this is a new directive/change effective September 1, 2007 and has not yet been officially published but is now policy.

As far as I can read (the pdf file) item 7.21 allows a person the retire here in Thailand and item 7.19 says that his/her married partner is still entitled to get a dependent visa.

The police order is from 1-9-2006 and will be effecitve from 1-10-2007.

Something wrong here?

[JaiGuru]

Give us an approximation ? 300,000 ? resident aliens ? 400,000 ? Give us an approximation.

The numbers may be higher than the data I found as my data is dated; it's interesting to note that TAT has pulled a lot of their reports, and I couldn't find census data for any years after 2000. Don't know why...

But why should we think there was a big jump in retirees moving to Thailand after 9/11 when the planes were empty, or SARS, or Avian Flu, or the coup, or the drug wars, or crackdown, or the troubles in the south, starting the New Year with a bang, and so on...

It's just a little hard to believe...

[lopburi3]

Please tell me where I can find this information..............if it is the police order (attached to the article on the ThaiVisa.com homepage): a dependent visa is still allowed and a map is only required for the applicants of an extention of a non-immigrant B (icm WP).

As stated in post one - this is a new directive/change effective September 1, 2007 and has not yet been officially published but is now policy.

As far as I can read (the pdf file) item 7.21 allows a person the retire here in Thailand and item 7.19 says that his/her married partner is still entitled to get a dependent visa.

The police order is from 1-9-2006 and will be effecitve from 1-10-2007.

Something wrong here?

Police order 606/2006 was issued on 8 September 2006 and was in full force from 1 October 2006 and is normally called the October change. Now there is another change that will set new criteria.

[TAWP]

I'm not sure if Thais want more farang to live here or not. I do know that most of us farang people, well, do not want more and more farang people moving here. Enough is enough.

Fair enough. However, can we trade you for someone nicer?

[phuketrichard]

wow 35 pages in 3 days!!!

could this be a record?

[JaiGuru]

My assertion is that there are many more of us here than what shows up on the books or in a census.

It's possible there could be more, but many more?

Or the point might be moot as there's a good chance those flying under the radar aren't really spending that much compared to the others. After all, if they were flush, why wouldn’t they take advantage of their wealth to set up housekeeping in LOS without the hassle? It's hard to argue people like visa runs in a cramped minibus... Especially if they have the money to provide a better solution.

[fruittbatt]

Today my husband, self, and several other anxious retiree farangs fronted Immigration in Chiang Mai to seek further details of the changes outlined in this thread.

All Immigration officials claimed there had been "no changes", and that income requirements would remain the same as for the past year until further notice. In other words, 800,000 baht is sufficient income to cover both spouses AT THE MOMENT and for some indeterminate period until the police order takes effect and CM is "notified" by Bangkok. A phone call to Bangkok Immigration confirmed this statement by the 2IC in CM.

The worrying aspect for many is that we do NOT know when things will change and whether the changes will be applied retrospectively from September 1.

[wolfmanjack]

My assertion is that there are many more of us here than what shows up on the books or in a census.

It's possible there could be more, but many more?

Or the point might be moot as there's a good chance those flying under the radar aren't really spending that much compared to the others. After all, if they were flush, why wouldn’t they take advantage of their wealth to set up housekeeping in LOS without the hassle? It's hard to argue people like visa runs in a cramped minibus... Especially if they have the money to provide a better solution.

Depends on what you call visa runs. I use a multiple entry visa which means i have to do a visa run every 90 days and i do not go on a cramped mini bus. I drive my own car or go on a plane. It is much easier to get than going through all of the bull at the immigration office. Based on the number of visa run companies there are i would say that quite a few are doing this though. Some people just do not like the idea of having to register or being kept track of. Some people do not like the idea of having 800,000 baht sitting in a thai bank doing nothing. Even if you are only spending 40,000 per month that would make up for 12 tourists that spend 2 weeks here at 3,000 baht a day.

By the way i tried to get the visa extension here in chiang mai based on marriage back when it was acceptable to have money in the bank. I received monthly extensions for 7 months. This meant that I had to renew my work permit every month. After 7 months i was given 7 days to leave the country because my account was 3,000 baht short on the day they checked. After this i switched to a "B" visa and started going to Penang. I don't know why retirees would not want to register at the local office but there has to be an explanation why there are 41,000 SS checks from the UK coming to thailand and the numbers from the statistical office for the UK are so low.

[farang prince]

I couldn’t find any statistics on how much resident aliens spend each month, but I think this forum speaks for itself; there are a few posters with lofty budgets of 100k THB per month (3,226 THB per day), but most seem to wonder how they are going to spend 65k THB per month (2,096 THB per day), grouse about why should they have to bring in so much money when the cost of living is so cheap, or as a recent post in this thread mentioned a farang and his Thai wife figuring out how they’re going to spend only 40k THB per month (1,290 THB per day).

So guru, please advise how to go about spending 1,290 THB per day if one has already paid off the house and car? ...

The reality is that what you consider to be a trifling amount only shows your remoteness from the reality that most Thais experience, a true neo-sahib.

Please, the nick is JaiGuru.

Personally, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I went looking for some answers and posted what I found.

If you carefully re-read the paragraph you quoted, it should be quite evident I’m not looking down on people with lower budgets at all. While it is true that my Thailand holiday budget is higher than the TAT average, my living in Rangsit budget is only 50k THB per month (not including travel and entertainment). Could I spend more? Perhaps, but right now 50k THB suits me right down to the ground. In a couple years, I expect the budget will grow not only due to inflation, but it’s always possible that appealing opportunities might come knocking. At least, that’s the current plan.

What I do find interesting is that on one hand people living in LOS say they are bringing so much into the country, while on the other hand so many are living so cheaply; they want to compare their living situation to tourists, and to my way of thinking it falls flat. Some seemingly think there are so many more expats from the West than tourists, but that doesn’t pan out either.

Your situation sounds a bit like my father’s; he had a wife, a house, a TV, a car, and he was set for life. It was the life he had dreamt of; can’t blame him for that. I crave a little more activity; I may have landed a woman, but I continue to woo her and that’s a line item in my budget. And that costs money.

With regard to your “neo-sahib crack; pul-leaze, living well is nothing new to me. But look at it as I’m doing you a favor; you’ll never blame me for taking one of your cheap-seats.

I started putting paper to pencil based on some of your numbers. Using you as an example, you say you are spending about 50,000 baht a month. That works out to approximately 1,639 baht per day. I'm spending a little more, about 60,000 baht a month when I'm living in Bangkok. Still, let's go back to your example. Let's say you are spending 600,000 baht a year as a resident alien in Thailand (excluding major capital purchases). So take 600,000 baht and multiply it by 265,849 resident aliens that we had in 1999. It's not an insignificant amount...about 159,509,400,000 baht. Again, this excludes major capital purchases and business investments. Now you might say the average resident alien isn't spending 600,000 baht annually. You are right. Many of us spend significantly more. But no matter how you parse it, more than 100 to 200 billion baht annually into the Thai economy is not insignificant. And the number of resident aliens could grow exponentially if the Thai government had any brains. With just a little encouragement and a loosening of regulations, there is no reason why the resident alien population couldn't double in ten years. So let's say that means more than 500,000 resident aliens. Now that would create more than 300 billion baht annually...and growing.

Now, let's take the tourist industry. The latest figures indicate 13,821,802 tourists, who spend an average of 3,500 baht per day. For the sake of argument, let's say these tourists stay an average of six days (which is probably a day or two longer than most of them actually stay). Using this baseline, would mean the average tourist is spending 21,000 baht on their visit to Thailand. What number do you get JaiGuru? I get 290 billion baht. Correct me if I'm wrong. I did this in long-hand and didn't use a calculator.

Here is what I see. The Thai government in its total incompetence is going to kill one of its golden geese. All of us who have been here for a while can see the handwriting on the wall. People who want to live in Thailand -- whether for a month or three months or six months or a year -- are getting pushed around. And this really pisses me off. We are sinking bucks into this economy on a daily basis, the vast majority of us don't create any problems and in fact silently put up with a lot of bureaucratic bullshit that shouldn't be foisted on us. Most of us understand the immature insecurity of the Thai government, who somehow see us as a threat, when they should be looking at the internal threat on the country's future created by the corrupt and incompetent people running this government at all levels of operation.

For those of you who are accusing us of "whinging" (I assume that is the Brit and Aussie version of whining), that's bullshit. We have been screwed, blewed and tattooed over and over again. We have paid for the right (millions of baht in my case) to complain. And to the kool-aid chorus who say "If you don't like it, leave..." all I can say is okay. It wasn't my choice. It was made by my Thai partner, who doesn't want to come back to her native country, and by a Thai government that is a danger to itself and to the good people who live here.

[JaiGuru]

I started putting paper to pencil based on some of your numbers.

I did exactly the same thing, only different…

For resident aliens, I used 265,849 * 1639 *365 and got 159,040,176,515.

For tourists, I used 13,821,802 * 9.7 (average stay in days) * 3800 (average spent per day) and got 509,471,621,720.

If the math is correct, the money brought in by tourism dwarfs that spent by the resident aliens.

But here’s the rub; 81.68% of the resident aliens are from China, and I think it could be argued that they’re living well below the western standard of living in LOS, which would make the numbers for the resident aliens look even worse. Much worse.

{Had to edit as I ran out of fingers...}

[A_Traveller]

JaiGuru, under the circumstances and since your linking to a government site please provide urls for your data. I'm not doubting you but for me, in BKK, the search system keeps failing {telling me a cgi file is missing} links fail etc. This may be a /eng/ problem, who knows. By the by there has been no census since 2000 so there's nothing 'missing'.

Regards

[wolfmanjack]

I started putting paper to pencil based on some of your numbers.

I did exactly the same thing, only different…

For resident aliens, I used 265,849 * 1639 *365 and got 159,040,176,515.

For tourists, I used 13,821,802 * 9.7 (average stay in days) * 3800 (average spent per day) and got 509,471,621,720.

If the math is correct, the money brought in by tourism dwarfs that spent by the resident aliens.

But here’s the rub; 81.68% of the resident aliens are from China, and I think it could be argued that they’re living well below the western standard of living in LOS, which would make the numbers for the resident aliens look even worse. Much worse.

{Had to edit as I ran out of fingers...}

So you are saying that the resident aliens spend 1639 baht per year in thailand or that the resident aliens only spend 1639 baht 1 day a year in thailand ?

In my opinion it should read 265,849 * 1639* 365 = 159,040,176,515 in 1999. You are using the figures for 1999 for resident aliens and the year 2006 figures for tourist.

Since you edited yours i will edit mine to note you added the 365 days.

I have to agree with jaiguru that the chinese and are probably spending less but even 50 billion is not an insignificant amount to the thai economy.

[JaiGuru]

JaiGuru, under the circumstances and since your linking to a government site please provide urls for your data. I'm not doubting you but for me, in BKK, the search system keeps failing {telling me a cgi file is missing} links fail etc. This may be a /eng/ problem, who knows. By the by there has been no census since 2000 so there's nothing 'missing'.

Regards

Here it goes...

http://web.nso.go.th/eng/stat/subject/subject.htm

Look at table 1.25 and 1.26 for resident alien data. There are some other interesting reports, but I don't have the table numbers at the moment.

[gdhm]

Not a word on the THAI MFA web site.

How does Sunbelt have this info and nobody else does???? Why hasnt Sunbelt copied and pasted this info for us all to see? Please reply Sunbelt.

http://www.mfa.go.th/web/2482.php?id=2493 ...CHECK THIS OUT.

Anyone else have this concern or question?

Regretfully if you want new rule change info THIS Forum repeatedly seems to give us the information first. I say regretfully NOT as any criticism of this excellent Forum but that Thailand feels it SO unimportant to update its MFA and immigration websites for the rest of the World's Visa seekers to see. The immigration website STILL has not updated its site to reflect the 1 Oct 2006 rule changes (well had not when I looked 2 Weeks ago).

Regretfully, Thailand seems quick to reject our Visa applications when they are incorrect and to waste ours and their officers time BUT it does not bother to do the obvious thing - that is do its best to advise Visa seekers of THEIR up to date requirements on their 2 main sites (a very cheap and logical option. These are the 2 sites most Internet users will refer to FIRST for VISA information.

But then lets face it the truth is that each Immigration Office THEN interprets the official rules as it sees fit (and the rules give them permission to do so) so we are still none the wiser.

Very Sad

Dave

[A_Traveller]

Here it goes...

http://web.nso.go.th/eng/stat/subject/subject.htm

Look at table 1.25 and 1.26 for resident alien data. There are some other interesting reports, but I don't have the table numbers at the moment.

Thanks for the courtesy. Am off line for the afternoon but will take time to review subsequently.

Regards

PS What is odd I agree is the lack of any 21st century data.

[Thailand]

We were going tomorrow for our fifth visa until a friend pointed us in Thai Visa' direction.

We have the 800,000 plus regular income but not enough to accomodate the visa for both of us- yes we are both farangs , I am 61 and my wife is 50 in three months, and we will be affected badly as will many other people we know.

My first step?

Well our house in now up for sale.

Next step? Seeking a good alternative to a country that unforunately no longer wants us.

Nezt step: Finding some way to justify our prescence while we try to sell our house.

A sad ,sad day for this lovely country and a ginormous step backwards.

[samran]

wow 35 pages in 3 days!!!

could this be a record?

but apart from the activity here, is there anyone going to protest this to the minister, espeically the harshness of the no grandfathering.

If a bunch of residents around Suvanaphum can get the government concerned by threatening to let off some baloons, then I'm sure that people here, if they got together and targeted the right ministries...en mass and with media coverage, would get a proper hearing.

[simon43]

Samran - Can I politely suggest that any form of protest to the ministry/immigration etc would be about as much use as p*ssing in the wind!

But there is one form of peaceful protest that would attract huge media attention, both within and outside Thailand.

If these immigration rule amendments are concerned so unfair, then the people affected by them should take their protest to the person who will listen - ie He who cannot be mentioned.

Imagine if even a few hundred farang were to peacefully assemble at Sanam Luang, with colourful yellow T-shirts and Thai flags, and banners proclaiming that they wish to peacefully live in Thailand etc.

Imagine if many of those protesters were retirees, in their 50s, 60s and 70s, both men and women.

Such a peaceful protest by these 'elderly' folk would attract huge media attention ....

Just a thought

Simon

[Jingthing]

We were going tomorrow for our fifth visa until a friend pointed us in Thai Visa' direction.

We have the 800,000 plus regular income but not enough to accomodate the visa for both of us- yes we are both farangs , I am 61 and my wife is 50 in three months, and we will be affected badly as will many other people we know.

My first step?

Well our house in now up for sale.

Next step? Seeking a good alternative to a country that unforunately no longer wants us.

Nezt step: Finding some way to justify our prescence while we try to sell our house.

A sad ,sad day for this lovely country and a ginormous step backwards.

Very sorry to hear about your troubles. Believe me, there are many of us who know that hardly any of us are safe from this kind of sudden harsh change that can drive us out of what we hoped would be our new home.

One thing though: can't you go in soon and see if the rules are being applied yet? At least that would be good if you can stay another year that way and some breathing room to either adjust or plan your exit.

You bring another point about a real human problem. For the group of people that are being forced out, and lately there seems to always be such a group of people, we really need more compassion from immigration in the form of a visa class that allows reasonable time to settle up and exit the country. You hear about 7 days to leave the country extensions. Kind of disgusting (actually I can think of many stronger words that would be more accurate) to do to people who may have been here for many years.

[Jingthing]

Samran - Can I politely suggest that any form of protest to the ministry/immigration etc would be about as much use as p*ssing in the wind!

But there is one form of peaceful protest that would attract huge media attention, both within and outside Thailand.

If these immigratuion rule amendments are concerned so unfair, then the people affected by them should take their protest to the person who will listen - ie He who cannot be mentioned.

Imagine if even a few hundred farang were to peacefully assemble at Sanam Luang, with colourful yellow T-shirts and Thai flags, and banners proclaiming that they wish to peacefully live in Thailand etc.

Imagine if many of those protesters were retirees, in their 50s, 60s and tos, both men and women.

Such a peaceful protest by these 'elderly' folk would attract huge media attention ....

Just a thought

Simon

Interesting idea, but I am not really sure how that would be received by Thai people. After all, to them, even if we have been here for 20 years we are still glorified tourists, so what are we doing wearing royal colors and waving Thai flags. Might that not look fake and staged and even worse an offense to royalty? Reminds me of the Mexican protests in the US where the illegal Mexicans decided to switch from waving Mexican flags to US flags for PR reasons, and few people were really impressed by this.

[chinthee]

Samran - Can I politely suggest that any form of protest to the ministry/immigration etc would be about as much use as p*ssing in the wind!

But there is one form of peaceful protest that would attract huge media attention, both within and outside Thailand.

If these immigration rule amendments are concerned so unfair, then the people affected by them should take their protest to the person who will listen - ie He who cannot be mentioned.

Imagine if even a few hundred farang were to peacefully assemble at Sanam Luang, with colourful yellow T-shirts and Thai flags, and banners proclaiming that they wish to peacefully live in Thailand etc.

Imagine if many of those protesters were retirees, in their 50s, 60s and 70s, both men and women.

Such a peaceful protest by these 'elderly' folk would attract huge media attention ....

Just a thought

Simon

Simon,

I didn't agree with your other analysis in this thread, but I think you have a winner of an idea there. What an odd position for the government to be placed in. This would generate the press to maybe get international attention. Quite an extraordinary idea, but maybe participants would be afraid of participating?

[Prakanong]

My assertion is that there are many more of us here than what shows up on the books or in a census.

It's possible there could be more, but many more?

Or the point might be moot as there's a good chance those flying under the radar aren't really spending that much compared to the others. After all, if they were flush, why wouldn't they take advantage of their wealth to set up housekeeping in LOS without the hassle? It's hard to argue people like visa runs in a cramped minibus... Especially if they have the money to provide a better solution.

Depends on what you call visa runs. I use a multiple entry visa which means i have to do a visa run every 90 days and i do not go on a cramped mini bus. I drive my own car or go on a plane. It is much easier to get than going through all of the bull at the immigration office. Based on the number of visa run companies there are i would say that quite a few are doing this though. Some people just do not like the idea of having to register or being kept track of. Some people do not like the idea of having 800,000 baht sitting in a thai bank doing nothing. Even if you are only spending 40,000 per month that would make up for 12 tourists that spend 2 weeks here at 3,000 baht a day.

By the way i tried to get the visa extension here in chiang mai based on marriage back when it was acceptable to have money in the bank. I received monthly extensions for 7 months. This meant that I had to renew my work permit every month. After 7 months i was given 7 days to leave the country because my account was 3,000 baht short on the day they checked. After this i switched to a "B" visa and started going to Penang. I don't know why retirees would not want to register at the local office but there has to be an explanation why there are 41,000 SS checks from the UK coming to thailand and the numbers from the statistical office for the UK are so low.

Official figures in Thailand are worthless in the vast majority of cases.

I agree with you the numbers are totally under what the actual figure will be. Maybe some can not pull together the 800k at once so go the 3 month route but live happily on pensions.

I know guys like you who do not want to be registered in Thailand and do the 90 day trip while also visiting surrounding countries.

I have been coming to Thailand regularly for a while now and lived there in 99 while working - I know so many more people who have arrived full time since 99 than I did before it - by a high multiple. Before then the most retirees I knew were ex US military and most of the full time guy's had "proper" expat jobs with a few school teachers thrownm in for good measure.

Lots have only discovered LOS since around 2000 given its wider publicity mainly through the www and boards like this one. I always see 2000 as a bit of a watershed in this but have no evidence either way - its all anecdotal.

[simon43]

Chinthee - As someone who loves Thailand and HM the K, but who is not affected by this ruling, I would be very happy to go to Sanam Luang.

Simon

[chinthee]

Chinthee - As someone who loves Thailand and HM the K, but who is not affected by this ruling, I would be very happy to go to Sanam Luang.

Simon

Me too. Same position. Not affected, but know couples who are.

* however, I seriouly doubt that foreigners have legal standing to participate in any public protest. Probably wouldn't go far.

[samran]

Samran - Can I politely suggest that any form of protest to the ministry/immigration etc would be about as much use as p*ssing in the wind!

But there is one form of peaceful protest that would attract huge media attention, both within and outside Thailand.

If these immigration rule amendments are concerned so unfair, then the people affected by them should take their protest to the person who will listen - ie He who cannot be mentioned.

Imagine if even a few hundred farang were to peacefully assemble at Sanam Luang, with colourful yellow T-shirts and Thai flags, and banners proclaiming that they wish to peacefully live in Thailand etc.

Imagine if many of those protesters were retirees, in their 50s, 60s and 70s, both men and women.

Such a peaceful protest by these 'elderly' folk would attract huge media attention ....

Just a thought

Simon

why not both? I mean a very common and effective tactic is to camp out at the ministry. But I agree, the sanam luang protest is a good idea....but the people who are affected are going to have to organise themselves as a cohesive group...which to be perfectly honest, the farang community has shown little ablity to do in the past, especially given the transient nature and dispersed georgraphy of most people here (no offense intended by this comment, merely an observation) .

[Sateev]

...

But here's the rub; 81.68% of the resident aliens are from China, and I think it could be argued that they're living well below the western standard of living in LOS, which would make the numbers for the resident aliens look even worse. Much worse.

...

After chewing on this for the past three days, I am still puzzled at the desired end.

Thanks to some inspired statistic-hunting by JaiGuru, I am beginning to wonder if, indeed, the target is the reduction of Asian, not farang, residents. If Chinese make up almost 82% of all resident aliens, a good way to target them, without overtly discriminating by, say, a quota system, or a raising of their minimum income requirement only, would be to do just what Thailand is apparently about to do. Unlikely to piss China off that way.

Of course, one would have to know a bit more about the demographics of the Chinese immigrants, to assess whether they would be a desirable group or not. Some one earlier indicated that he thought the Chinese came with large families, but there is the One-Child rule in China, to be continued through at least 2010. Are these wealthy Chinese? I doubt it. Most likely refugee types, but I really have no idea. Perhaps someone can amplify a bit.

[edit: corrected info] As it turns out, I didn't realize that the One-Child policy was so unevenly enforced. Rural Chinese are de-facto exempt, so it lend further creedence to the inflated size of Chinese families who emigrate to Thailand

I have the growing feeling that we farang, or rather the poor married retirees, are receiving collateral damage, as a result of an as yet unseen agenda, which totally disregards, and has nothing to do with us.

Sateev

[retiredusn]

Although I and my wife are directly affected by this I would suggest all wait a day or two just to see what the gov. positions will be..................All we have seen so far is one report by one legal office.

[Artisi]

For those of us from countries who welcome legitate immigrants and who is some cases bend over backwards to ensure they are intergrated into the society with the least amount of problem should lobby their governments as well as to the unfairness being shown to their citizen (although in some cases they might be considered ex-citizens) who wish to live overseas, although Aust. allows pensions etc to be paid to Aust. citizen living overseas and in some cases has agreements with foriegn countries to fund their citizen with a pension locally.

If you take the Australian government as an example, for those who are married to a Thai citizen you can apply and usually get a visa for you partner to live with you in Australia, this is valid for 2 years after which it will become a permanent residency visa- this assumes you meet the criteria when you apply and maintain this for the 2 year period. So what do you get from the goverment the day your partner arrives in Aust. - access to basic health care - 500 hrs of language tuitioin, you can ever receive social security under some conditions as well as other benefits - you are also made to feel welcome, the Governemt also supplies funds to the Thai welfare association which is there to assist Thai people in Aust. (as well as other nationalities) - not a bad effort on the part of our government compared to the complicated, difficult and unco-operative forever changing rules and regulations and in some case backward decisions that are taken in Thailand.

So don't complain all day in this forum which will result in nothing what so ever, if you're an Aussie do something constructive by writting to you're local member of parliament, same goes for you Kiwis, Brits, Yanks, Germans etc who probably have similar rules regarding legitimate immigrant to your respective countries.

[otton]

I really don’t understand the paranoia of posting links on this forum so I refrain from doing so, but the information you seek can easily be found on the website of the National Statistical Office, Ministry Of Information and Communication Technology, Thailand. It *really* is easy, I promise.

Without regard to as far as you know, the numbers do indeed refer to the resident aliens in Thailand, not just Greater Bangkok.

And your numbers seem a bit off; the census reports: 217,135 Chinese, 2,650 Japanese, 6,258 Indians, 2,355 Americans, 1,764 UK, 1,292 Germany, no listed Taiwanese, 553 Koreans, no listed, and so on... Google is a wonderful thing.

Additionally, you're off on your assertion of the vast majority of the females being Chinese, Indian and Malaysians, but you'll find that out when you do the research.

Those numbers are from 10 years ago and it would be most interesting to see what do they mean by "residents". All of the various non-IMM visas + the PR holders? If that's the case that would leave out the huge mass of people who have "traditionally" been living in Thailand full time on back-to-back visa runs.

Just to show you what 10 years mean, there is an estimated number of 1.5/2 million migrant workers in Thailand (around 80% from Burma, the rest mainly from Laos and Cambodia) from its poor neighbouring countries and of those, less than half a million is legal (ie they hold work permits), 10 years ago they were one fourth.

According to the data from Thailand’s National Statistics Office, the average monthly income for the entire kingdom per household (3.6 people) was 12,167 THB. While it’s true that if you divide my reported 24k THB or so by the average household size of 3.6 people, you may get something around 7K, I find it difficult to believe that all 3.6 members of the average Greater Bangkok household would be wage earners. Thus, I should think the average wage per wage earner is higher.

Yes, undoubtedly higher than the national average in Greater Bangkok, so what? The point is that the average Thai is earning 7700 Baht a month (Q1 2007 BOT fugures, not 10 years ago) so however much you are trying to downplay the contribution of Western and other rich Asian residents (whichever their visa status) each of them is every month injecting into the Thai economy several times the average Thai's monthly wage in valuable FOREX.

Sex tourists don’t stay at hotels, eat at restaurants, or visit any attractions? Wow!! That’s hard to believe!!

No, they do but sex tourists spend MOST of their money on the girls (even after they leave Thailand...) and in the bars and that's why MOST of what they spend (and their total contribution to the Thai economy) doesn't end up in those useless TAT stats...

I really do understand your argument, but all I can say is of the expats I know in LOS, owning a condo or house+car+motorbike is not typical

I see you have not offered an estimate here, but you do in another post. May I bring to your and everyone's attention the fact that 10 years ago your low-end estimate would have been equal to roughly the value of the whole agricultural sector (which employed almost 60% of the workforce)?