Hi all,

Was reading some of the responses here and it seems there is a lot of knowledge being shared which is good.

I have a question re: a new business opp in LOS

I am working together with a Malaysian company to develop an IT product. We would like to use Thailand as the prototype country so will be approaching the gov't as partners (not so much as buyers). The Malaysian company is a well established company with about US$4 million in capital and established for about 7 years.

At the same time, we want to tread very carefully in entering the market, not quite sure whether this new application will be accepted. The company wants to place me in BKK for exploratory purposes more than anything else with very limited funds available at first. Can't hire extra people for a few months at least.

So my questions:

1) What kind of visa works best? Non-immigrant or will it be possible to apply for a work pass as a rep office?

2) In terms of my own personal logistics, with only a non-immigrant pass, would I be able to open up a bank account in Thailand? sign a lease on an apartment? register for a phone/fax line? subscribe to internet service? handphone service? Or am I better off doing these things through Malaysia where the above issues won't be a problem and just travelling to and from Thailand?

Thanks very much for your help and really look forward to hearing from you all.

Matthew

Would you be doing call back or VOIP. I think the comp is heavy and rough.

It sounds like 90% of the people wanting to do business in Thailand is IT.

I hope you have something special like an OC3 out of thailand without paying the local fees.

It's not VoIP. Something altogether different. Just curious about the logistics issues of setting up.

1) What kind of visa works best? Non-immigrant or will it be possible to apply for a work pass as a rep office?

Non-immmigrant

2) In terms of my own personal logistics, with only a non-immigrant pass, would I be able to open up a bank account in Thailand?

You could open a personal savings. corp... you need corp ID and company reg.

sign a lease on an apartment?

yes

register for a phone/fax line?

yes ... corp however need a work permit

subscribe to internet service?

yes... if you do it with a corp however you need a work permit.

handphone service?

12call.. yes but with normal handphone- you would need a work permit

I think you can set up a trading company whcih does not actually make any money at first. Not sure about the visa for doing this but I am sure there are allowances for trading companies that are registered in other countries.