Foreign Investors Still Optimistic About Pattaya

[libya 115]

SOURCE: Pattaya Daily News: 6-6-08

FOREIGN INVESTORS STILL OPTIMISTIC ABOUT PATTAYA

The Thai Government is currently taking steps to reassure foreign investors, one of Thailand‘s biggest money earners, that the present wave of political protests is a short term affair and isn‘t indicative of long-term instability.

Apparently, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama thought it necessary to reassure the British business community, in particular via the UK‘s Foreign Minister, David Miliband, that all was essentially well in the Land of Smiles and what discontent there was was merely a symptom of the democratic process.

Everybody here understands that street protests are normal in any democratic country and they don‘t have to hurt government stability," Noppadon said in a press briefing in London on June 3, 2008.

Mr. Noppadon's attempt to reassure both foreign investors and potential tourists was apparently in response to a recent report that Asian tourists in particular are shying away from Thailand because of the political protests, Malaysia and Indonesia, apparently issuing travel warnings to their citizens contemplating Thai holidays. Highly respected Thai commentator, Prawase Wasi, also warned that the Thai poltico-economic conflicts were discouraging investment and tourism and proposed the establishment of a national government as a solution.

All this popular mass protest recently witnessed in the streets of Bangkok, doesn't seem to have radically affected Russian and Scandinavian investors, particularly in Pattaya, however. In 2007, 889,656 Russians visited Pattaya, up 84 per cent from 2006, making them the leading market for the resort. According to Raimon Land's CEO, Nigel Cornick's recent edition of the definitive property guide "Why invest...... Pattaya", the Russians and Scandinavians have now displaced the Brits and Germans as the main property investors in Pattaya, which is particularly good news for developers in this fair city. And although the Russians have been coming here for the past 10 years, it's only in the past two that they have started to buy up Pattaya properties. Last year, according to Raimon Land, Russian property purchases accounted for 22 per cent, (USD 7.7 million) of condominium sales in their upmarket developments Northshore, The Lofts, Southshore and Northpoint.

The Russians, however, not exactly being super-linguists as any Pattaya-Jomtien baht-bus passenger can readily attest, do tend to place their trust in their own language speakers, which is why recently so many Pattaya Real estate agents have begun to recruit Russian speakers, as a glimpse at the classified Jobs Offered sections of the local media will confirm. Although some longer term Russian Pattaya residents have begun placing their children in the local international schools where learning English is far cheaper than back in Russia.

One new trend, however, won't gladden the hearts of the established Pattaya real estate agencies, however, that of the recent setting up of real estate agencies by authentic Russians, many of whom have direct links with the lucrative CIS tourist group market. Uriy Segal, the Russian president of Russian House, a newly set-up Pattaya property agency, stated "I think this year (2008), Russians will account for 40 per cent of property sales in Pattaya." Segal also commented that compared to Moscow, property prices in Pattaya are a bargain.

Although there is a growing trend for Russians to open their own real estate agencies, their local Western brethren can still count on substantial Russian custom, however, as can be vouched for by the likes of Raimon Land, CB Richard Ellis and Siam Best Enterprises.' ultra prestigious, Ocean 1 Tower. Russians, apparently, love to boast of their purchases back home and ownership in Siam Best Enterprises.' ultra prestigious, Ocean 1 Tower, as SE Asia's potentially tallest building comes top of the list.

For most Pattaya real estate agencies however, the Scandinavian local investor market is much less lucrative. Although there is a prediction by Colliers International of a huge incipient surge from Nordic RSH (retired and second home) investors, with Pattaya investments estimated at Bt1550 billion (2008-9), local real estate agents can expect to see little of this as the Swedish and Norwegian market in Pattaya is effectively sewn by up savvy Scandinavian developers who often sell Pattaya properties to their compatriots even before they come to what is now termed the Asian Riviera or mini-Bangkok, i.e. Pattaya.

[Pattaya_Fox]

This thread is also running in the Thailand news forum.