No Work Permit Needed For Aussies

[george]

Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement

TEMPORARY ENTRY OF BUSINESS PEOPLE

No work permit needed for Aussies

Australian citizens who are business visitors conducting business meetings in Thailand for a few days have often unwittingly broken the law because they did not obtain a work permit before arrival. Under the TAFTA, Thailand will not require a work permit for Australian citizens who are business visitors for up to 15 days, and up to 90 days for APEC Travel Card Holders.

Thailand has agreed to reduce the number of documents required from Australians for work permits and renewals, and undertaken to explore extending the initial period of visa's and work permits for intra-corporate transferees to three years, with a total stay of up to 10 years.

Also for further negotiation are the provision of offshore processing and granting of visa's and work permits and the granting of automatic work rights for spouses of intra-corporate transferees and the abolition of labour market testing.

Source: Australia Thailand Business Council Bulletin February 2004 ( Random paragraphs of interest )

[samran]

Ahhhh, politics.

All this was supposedly "agreed" when the two governments announced the FTA. All that was left was to draft the legislation they said.....

Looks like those 2 media tarts (Little Johnny and Dear Leader) got together and conveinently used the APEC meeting last year to announce that they had a FTA, when in fact they didn't have everything agreed. Funny how you can have a final agreement, without even finalising the discussions.