Transcript of the above video:

For those who are unaware, Thailand has what is called a Foreign Business Act and those foreign nationals looking to do business in Thailand are oftentimes going to have to run up against the Foreign Business Act when looking to do business. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the print edition of the Bangkok Post but we are going to go ahead and throw up from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, 'Grey' businesses facing crackdown. Quoting directly: "Thailand's Foreign Business Act currently limits foreign shareholdings to 49% of a business and includes three Lists of work for which foreign participation may be prohibited or restricted." So let's start with that for a moment, let's kind of dig into that. 

Under the Foreign Business Act, virtually all types of business, and again it is going to be somewhat circumstantially dependent, but it is pretty safe to say virtually all types of business one is looking to do in Thailand, you are going to end up having to have a 49 to 51; so foreign ownership 49, Thai ownership 51 type of split in order to do that kind of business, in order to do business in Thailand. As we have discussed in other videos, the US-Thai Treaty of Amity may allow Americans to own their companies 100% but that is not really the scope of this video. That being stated, even under the Foreign Business Act, List 1 is highly restricted to the point that foreigners are not even allowed to do any of the businesses on List 1. Quoting further: "Activities in List 1 are designated as 'businesses is not permitted for foreigners to operate due to special reasons’. Foreign Companies are completely restricted from engaging in these activities." 

Now as we have discussed in detail in prior videos where we get into the List, this is stuff that you kind of expect. I mean it is National Security kind of issues, land ownership, these kinds of things are completely restricted even under the Foreign Business Act under List 1.