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Do Americans Need To Worry About The Thai Foreign Business Act?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not Americans need to worry about the Foreign Business Act. What is the Foreign Business Act? Well it has been in the news a lot lately; we have done a lot of videos on it because even Thai Immigration now is getting into proactively investigating businesses to see if they are in violation of the Foreign Business Act. The Foreign Business Act stipulates that there are certain types of business that are reserved for Thais only; certain types of businesses that a foreigner may engage in but they can only engage in from a minority position within a corporate structure here in Thailand.
The question posed is "do Americans need to worry about this?" The question is posed because of the existence of what is called the US-Thai Treaty of Amity and pursuant to the provisions of the US-Thai Treaty of Amity, Americans are granted so-called National Treatment to do business - especially American Business, American corporations - to do business here in Thailand. So notwithstanding the provisions of the Foreign Business Act, Americans duly certified pursuant to the provisions of the US-Thai Treaty of Amity, can do business in certain areas.
Now the Amity Treaty is not limitless. As we have discussed in other videos, there are restrictions to the Amity Treaty that continue to impose certain restrictions on foreign nationals notwithstanding the existence of the Treaty of Amity. That being said, said restrictions are not necessarily imposed on Americans who have Amity Treaty Certification as long as that Amity Treaty Company is not operating even in those areas which are exempt even under the Treaty which we have done other videos on this channel discussing that. Yeah effectively it overrides if you will, the Foreign Business Act for purposes of Americans here.
Again there is a certification process; there are some formalities associated with it but for the most part, yeah Americans don't really have to worry about the Foreign Business Act to the same extent as other foreign nationals here in the Kingdom of Thailand.