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Did Foreign Property Ownership Issues Contribute to Thai PM's Removal?
Transcript of the above video:
As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing property here in Thailand specifically the notion of foreign property ownership, or foreign use of Thai property, and the question posed is "did property ownership issues impact or was it a contributing factor to the recent Government shakeup? The removal of the Prime Minister, and now we are in this sort of the government shakeup.
I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: More foreign ownership 'could mean more illegal hotels'. Quoting directly: "Hotel operators are concerned about changes to foreign ownership rules for real estate because they believe it could lead to another influx of illegal hotels in Thailand." Back some years ago I did a video on this where we were talking about Airbnb. That even went into the Court system; it's still kind of a nebulous issue, the issue of Airbnb. But we talked about how foreigners, first of all in that case it involved villas which that involves land which that's its own problem with respect to foreigners here in Thailand. Then on top of it, we were also talking about the fact that it purely had to do with hotels. Primarily it was going on down in Samui and it was having an impact on the hotel industry in Samui and it blew up. There were a lot of problems that came about as a result of that because foreigners were frankly in a lot of cases operating illegally; they weren't operating within the rules.
That said, quoting further: "The Government's real estate stimulus proposal aims to extend the leasehold period to 99 years for foreigners while increasing the quota of foreign ownership of condominiums from 49% to 75% of usable space in a building." So first of all the question posed is, is it really the Government? As we have discussed in other videos, the current coalition has various factions within it. Yeah okay the dominant faction if you will brought up these proposals for changes to the property laws, but is it really, one, do they really have a mandate for these changes? And two, is it something that really, going back, do they really have a mandate for that and then on top of it are their own supporters even on board with this?
I talked in another video where we were discussing the fact that Khun Jatuporn who traditionally seemed to side with the current dominant faction in the coalition at least in the past, from my recollection, don't wish to speak for the man, but that said, he brought up the fact that there was serious concerns amongst Thais about the possibility of extending leaseholds or increasing the foreign quota within condominiums. Quoting further: "For instance, Chinese nominee agents might purchase an entire floor in a condo project and rent all the rooms out to only Chinese visitors in major tourism provinces which has occurred in the past." Now to be clear that's not what Mr Jatuporn necessarily said in the past but again, you need to remember, these issues of foreign ownership of land, foreigners working in Thailand, these can be very hot button issues in Thailand. Thais zealously guard their liberties for one, as well as their own prerogatives within their country and they insulate their labour base and they also insulate themselves from being overrun quite honestly, by foreigners owning property in the country.
So the thing to take away from this video and understand is, I'm not saying necessarily these issues contributed to the PM being removed. Clearly the Constitutional Court's ruling at the end of the day was the reason; it's the proximate cause if you will of his removal. But let’s be clear, there have been many policies leading up to this point over the past few months that have not been super-duper popular that now we have to wonder if we are going to see these same proposals continue to be bandied about in the aftermath of this removal and presumably some sort of shakeup or reshuffle after this caretaker Government goes out and we see a new Government replace this old Government here in the Kingdom of Thailand.