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As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question "Should Thailand be Courting more Business Visa users?" I thought about this when I was reading a recent article from the Thai Enquirer, that is thaienquirer.com, the article is titled: Opposition Leader argues Thailand should Court other visitor groups other than retirees. Quoting directly: "An opposition Parliamentarian on Tuesday said that Thailand should focus on other potential visitors after the country was named as one of the best places to retire. Pichai Naripthaphan, the Deputy Leader of Phue Thai Party told Thai Enquirer that temporary retirement visitors is a good step but not the main target visitors that the country should target." Quoting further and quoting directly: "The Government should not consider retirement visitors as Thailand's main direction. The country should focus more on potential visitors including business visitors."

Okay, interesting point. I have talked about this a little bit at length regarding retirees but from the standpoint of business visitors, the thing you have got to keep in mind is folks looking to do business here in Thailand they need to have sponsorship from some sort of corporate structure. We oftentimes here in the firm assist folks in setting up Corporations even before they get to Thailand so that they can get a Business Visa abroad or if they already have a business ongoing, we assist folks in coming in on business status and obtaining a Work Permit and maintaining long-term Thai Business Visa and Work Permit status that way. It certainly is a laudable goal. I do hope we can attract more folks to do business here in Thailand.

In my opinion there is not enough attention focused on quite frankly how relatively easy it is to set up a business here in Thailand compared to other jurisdictions in Asia including at a practical level. We set up a lot of folks with Corporate entities here in Thailand and get them work authorization, Business Visa status to maintain long-term status here in Thailand and compared to other places in the region, I think Thailand pretty up there quite frankly. Now yes, I understand Singapore is kind of a different animal in my opinion; there is kind of a different way of doing things down there. As far as mainland Southeast Asia, especially for Americans under what is called the US-Thai Treaty of Amity but even other nationalities as well including under the Board of Investments structure, there is a lot of opportunity for doing business for foreigners here in the Kingdom of Thailand and the practicalities associated with it are in my opinion, again pretty good compared to the other jurisdictions in this region.