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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing a "task force" being set up to attract Expats to Thailand. I came upon this notion in a recent article from the Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Change in Insurance Rules for Retirement Visas After Some Over 70s Were Forced out of Thailand. Quoting directly: "Government "task force" targets more foreigners to live in Thailand including retirees attracted by the climate." Quoting further: "At the end of March this year, it was revealed that a new task force set up by the Centre for Economic Situation Administration, CESA, Deputy Prime Minister Supattanopong Punmeechaow was working to attract more foreigners to live and work in Thailand in an effort to boost the economy towards at least 4% annual per annum growth. It comes as Thailand's own population ages forcing the Government to announce in the same week that a new national pension scheme was being planned." Quoting further: "As well as attracting young entrepreneurs, the self-employed and high earning migrants to Thailand, the special unit also identified the retirement market where Thailand has had some success as having further potential with millions of foreigners worldwide interested in taking advantage of the Kingdom's climate, friendly environment and relatively low cost of living." Interesting this notion of a task force. 

If I could make a suggestion, perhaps just a task force to stop putting on increasing complexities and requirements upon retirees to better attract them. We have seen a lot of these so-called plans which may allow retirees to own land, certain high net worth individuals to come to Thailand and work on this or that kind of visa without these types of rules and regulations. Just a thought. Maybe stop planning so much and just start trying to get people to come in. I am not trying to inject my own opinions into this exactly but I have read so much of this stuff over the past couple of months. I am certainly concerned; I want Thailand to do as well as it can; I want Thailand to attract as many great people to this country to help this country go further into the 21st century and do well for the nation, do well for the economy. I want all those things. 

I often wonder if excessive regulations and planning committees and all of these programs and schemes which oftentimes there is this great prize at the end of the rainbow, but the rainbow consists of a lot of really high threshold requirements in order to get there. Maybe the best idea is to just try and get the country as opened up as possible and just say "Hey we are open for retirees. Please come on in." I would think that that might be a good way to do things. Now I do understand that is simplistic. I am not trying to say that is all that needs to happen. Plans are required, we do need things to proceed with some level of organization but my personal opinion is Thailand's Pros, they speak for themselves. It is a great place to live in; great people in Thailand; the weather is great; the cost of living is fantastic. I have got to be honest with you though. Cons, one of them, these days especially, I am hearing this from a lot of retirees and people that want to come live here, one of the big downsides is yeah there just seems to be a lot of bureaucratic regulation associated with even getting into Thailand, let alone staying there. Anything that could be done in my opinion to mitigate that would probably do more to attract expats than any task force could ever do.