British Embassy Confirms Brand New Pattaya Office

[george]

British embassy confirms brand new Pattaya office

PATTAYA: -- Following acceptance of the case for commercial expansion by the foreign office in London, the British embassy in Bangkok has confirmed it has secured the lease on a small office in Jomtien for the use of its consulate in the Pattaya area.

The 20 sqm room, which will need mini-minor works to improve safety and security, is in the block of shop units on the main road in Jomtien soi 5 very close to the Pattaya immigration bureau. The embassy office will be the unit adjacent to the money changer.

The repair and renovation work is expected to take a couple of months before the formal opening perhaps in July. The developer and agent Siam Best Enterprises was responsible for clinching the financial deal with the embassy.

SBE’s chief executive Bruno ###### said, “I am delighted by this cooperation between my company and the British embassy and I feel that the office is long overdue in view of the heavy workload of the Pattaya consulate.”

Siam Best Enterprises is very well known as the company constructing Ocean1 Tower, scheduled to be the tallest building in Thailand.

Pattaya based embassy staff currently are found in the Meesen coffee shop, also close to the immigration bureau, and the new office will just a few meters away.

Apart from seeing up to 20 customers a day at busy periods, mostly on immigration and passport related business, they are also responsible for visiting arrested British nationals at police stations and jails and looking into some hospitalisations and deaths in the resort area.

It’s expected that opening hours and services will be expanded once the new office is operational.

The British embassy in Bangkok already maintains an office in Chiang Mai but in no other cities or towns in Thailand. The Pattaya venture is recognition that the work load in the eastern seaboard resort has now outgrown the structures available.

The embassy also has honorary consuls in Phuket and Ko Samui who say that their work load is also going up by leaps and bounds.

It’s believed that over 600,000 British nationals visit Thailand every year, or are based here, and that at least a third of them spend much of their time in Pattaya.

-- Pattaya Today 2008-05-21