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American Amity Treaty Companies In Thailand's EEC?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor and we are discussing also the US Thai Treaty of Amity and the benefits that can be accrued thereby for companies looking to do business here in the Kingdom of Thailand, specifically Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor which is a newly designed and it has a promulgated law associated with it, a newly designed if you want to call it Free Trade Area or Trade Zone which encompasses Chachoengsao, Chonburi and Rayong provinces. Also noteworthy there, Laem Chabang Port as well as the Municipality of Pattaya are within the bounds of this Eastern Economic Corridor.
Meanwhile what is the US-Thai Treaty of Amity? Well the US-Thai Treaty of Amity is a bilateral Treaty between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Thailand which provides "National Treatment" to those types of businesses that are American, looking to do business here in the Kingdom. Now as discussed in other videos, there are some restrictions associated with this but this is a substantial benefit as Americans do not need to worry about dealing with the vagaries if you will of the Foreign Business Act and American businesses and American prospective business owners, can own their companies here in Thailand 100%, provided they are certified pursuant to the provisions of the Treaty of Amity. Now the thing to take away from this video is we are seeing major developments within Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor including a number of concessions associated with visas and work permits. So again, what we're seeing here is a situation wherein you could end up like ‘double dipping benefits’ if you will insofar as having an Amity Certified Company doing business in the EEC and perhaps you can then go ahead and seek EEC concessions on top of Amity Certification.
Again this is kind of an evolving scenario here in Thailand. So again, I don't have a ton of details about the exact ways in which these two things are going to interact as it just recently came to my attention that the EEC will now be providing certain Immigration benefits similar to those provided by the Board of Investment in terms of long-term visas, long-term work authorization status, but again these could be coupled with the benefits associated with Treaty of Amity certification. And as I have discussed in other videos, there may even be certain positive ramifications of Amity Certification for American businesses here in Thailand in an American Tax context. All of these things together auger well for American Business here in the Kingdom of Thailand.