Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Vietnam copying, I am not saying that is what they are doing exactly, but are they taking a look at what Thailand has done, seen the success with the "Sandbox" initiatives and maybe looking to implement something similar. 

This came to my attention from a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Vietnam to reopen resort island to foreign tourists to boost economy. Quoting directly: "Hanoi: Vietnam plans to reopen the beach fringed island of Phu Quoc to foreign tourists from next month Authorities said as the country looks at ways to revive an economy suffering from extended lockdowns due to the Coronavirus pandemic." Quoting further: "The island, 10 km off the coast of Cambodia is expected to open for a trial period of 6 months the Government said in a statement issued late on Thursday."  

Now this was rather interesting. We have done some videos on Vietnam. I don't do them very often but I do some videos every now and then again about Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, sometimes Myanmar even regarding some Immigration policies going on because Southeast Asia is a kind of a compact region. There are a lot of countries right around here and prior to March 2020, the practice of so-called Border running or Visa running was pretty frequent, a pretty common thing in Southeast Asia especially here in Thailand. People would fly to another country or cross a border into another country in order to come back in and renew or replenish however you want to look at it, their visa status. Vietnam was one of the jurisdictions folks like to go to. As we have noted in recent months, Vietnam took a pretty hard line on not only not letting a lot of foreigners in but it was even becoming apparent that certain folks they were sort of for lack of a better term, almost pushing out. They were not renewing status; the policy was "we would prefer it if you left". This was in contrast to Thailand. Thailand has been attempting under the circumstances to keep an open door to tourists and we have seen that evident in things like the "Sandbox" strategy which down in Phuket, down in Koh Samui and some of the other Islands have been implementing this and it looks like it's going to go even broader with more discussion of Bangkok reopening, Pattaya reopening; I think Hua Hin is on the slate to reopen in this "Sandbox" model where you have to stay in this geographic region before you can spread your wings and go further about here in Thailand. 

So exactly how this plays out in Vietnam remains to be seen but I definitely think especially for expats who prefer Vietnam and for folks maybe looking down the line where we could see maybe the chance for a border run in the offing, I think all of this is pretty good news.