It is Official. The window is closed.

As of today no more Amity treaty applications are being accepted until the FTA between Thailand and the USA has been completely negotiated.

There is no official timeline on when the negotiations will end or are expected to end. However my understanding is both sides hope to reach an agreement by mid 2006.

The Labor Dept is also on a case by case basis now requiring American Amity companies to have registered capital of 3 million Baht per work permit. This was supposed to be implemented in Aug 2009, but some officers are already requiring this criteria.

Nothing else changes with existing Amity Treaty companies.

www.lawyer.th.com

Hi Sunbelt, is this still the case? There's a rumour the window is open again...

The answer: (From U.S. Commercial Service advisory sent to me thsiw eek)

"As of March 6, the Ministry of Commerce resumed the processing of

registrations under the Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations. The

Commercial Section of the Embassy is therefore accepting registration

processing as well. The agreement with the MOC is renewable in three month

increments, so we strongly advise anyone who wants to register under the

Treaty to do so with that in mind. Contact the Commercial Section of the

US Embassy at 02-205- 5090 with any questions."

Good luck!

Steve Sykes

Managing Director

Indo-Siam Group

Bangkok

[email protected]

www.thaistartup.com

Hi Sunbelt, is this still the case? There's a rumour the window is open again...

As of yesterday afternoon it has been reopen for 3 months.

On March 6th, the US Commercial Services notified us they had resumed the processing of registrations under the Treaty of Amity

However on March 7th and 8th this was not true. The US Commercial Services had gotten ahead of themselves as the MOC had not reopened yet on the applications. On those two days they had no idea when the registrations would resume.

Yesterday afternoon, our legal staff met with the US Commercial Services and the MOC. Good news came out of the meeting and they resumed accepting applications and are accepting them this morning.

We strongly advise who ever wants to register under the Amity (giving the Americans the same rights as Thais in regards to owning a business with majority of shares) to do it NOW!!! The agreement with the MOC is renewable in three month increments.

www.lawyer.th.com

That's good news--many thanks for the update!