Immigration Rules Eased For Foreign Specialists: Thailand

[tombkk]

So why don't they turn you back at the airport when you check that the purpose of your visit is "business" on your immigration card and you don't have a visa?

You would have to ask immigration that, and I believe what you are ticking is your landing card and would suspect they are not even looking.

The stated examples are based on opinions from immigration officals from one of the immigration offices, not at the airport and as always what "head office" says and what happens in reality are generally completely different things...

I believe what you tick on the inside of the landing card is for statistical purposes only. Different department.

[Maestro]

I have deleted some nonsensical and off-topic posts. If more of this is posted, it will be deleted without comment, but perhaps a warning to the poster.

[gnatman]

I just checked with the Thai Consulate in Boston who in turn called their counterpart at the Thai Embassy in Washington and they have no knowledge of any visa fee waiver program.

[Soutpeel]

Not really sure what problem this solves. It's people with no skills that have trouble getting visas to stay in Thailand, not "foreign specialists" that legitimate corporations would be interested in hiring. The latter would generally have a company paying for their visa anyway and since they'd have corporate sponsorship and a good salary they never had much trouble getting visas.

Way to try and turn a small positive into a negative. Who wants to pay for an expensive tech to spend hours at government offices at hundreds of $ per hour when he could be done in 1. Also some techs have problems getting WPs if they don't have a degree.Relaxation of qualifications requirements could help.

They dont spend hours at goverment offices, and if they are on temporary work permits, they spend no time in goverment offices in Thailand, threy get off the plane and go to work, even if they are here for 12 months or more, they will spend generally no more than 2 hours in "goverment offices" in any given year.

Legitimate technical staff have no problems getting WP's even if they dont have a degree (which is not a WP requirement anyway)

[NanLaew]

So why don't they turn you back at the airport when you check that the purpose of your visit is "business" on your immigration card and you don't have a visa?

You would have to ask immigration that, and I believe what you are ticking is your landing card and would suspect they are not even looking.

The stated examples are based on opinions from immigration officals from one of the immigration offices, not at the airport and as always what "head office" says and what happens in reality are generally completely different things...

That '3rd page' on the landing card isn't there for Immigration who use the Arrival and Departure data. The check-box bumph on the back of the Arrival card goes to TAT and others to stuff some databases about the demographics of people arriving. So both a Tourist or Business entrant are equally entitled to practice gynecological studies in NEP regardless of the reason stated when they applied for the visa. You know, the non sexpat, retired, perpetual Tourist, visa-running TEFL'er sort.

And no, a new TEFL certificate isn't included in the flood recovery assistance visa/WP conundrum. Doesn't actually count for bugger all really.

Edited December 8, 2011 by NanLaew

[meatboy]

i should be able to enjoy prefuential treatment,i help with the drying out of bars also the clearing of food on the walkways :jap:

[witsawakorn]

My question is, who are the 1,440 operators who are asking for help? My guess would be, that 1435 of those are Thai companies who wouldn't hire a farang to help them do anything. :-) The others are probably Japanese companies who don't trust the Thai's to do the work necessary.

Try reading the full OP. If you did you would see that the visa relaxation isn't the most important benefit on offer . Tariff reduction on imported machinery would have a much more beneficial impact for a company who has been flood affected. Who wouldn't apply for that? Thais almost always do the actual work on specialised machines but of course technical specialists whether Farang or Japanese or other will supervise if only to maitain the warranty so its not a case of Japanese not trusting Thais to do the work or Thai companies not wanting to hire Farangs. If they want to fix the machines they will probably have to bring in techs from the OEM whereever they happen to bought the machines from or not if the OEM has sufficient business in Thailand to justify setting up a service centre here in which case the techs will be Thai ( GE Gas Turbines for example)