Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the question of whether or not Thailand should sell passports. What we are talking about is so-called Citizenship by Investment programs or Nationality by investment. 

I have discussed this before. It is not an uncommon thing especially in the kind of the global expat community to talk about buying passports, Citizenship by Investment, however you want to look at it but basically an economic transaction which results in the conferral of nationality specifically citizenship and a passport, in that given country. The reason for the video is I was recently reading an article in the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, I urge folks who are watching this video to go check that out. The article is titled: Thailand continues to hunt for the super-rich "bleisure" traveller. Quoting directly: "Critics say that the Thai government has many schemes on offer, or in the pipeline, to lure wealthy foreigners, but none of them offer full residency or unrestricted ownership of freehold land." We have discussed residence and freehold title to land in other videos. Quoting further: "Both of these "maybes" are currently under consideration in Government Committees. Meanwhile many overseas countries do offer full residency to foreigners and passports for sale for upwards of a quarter of a million dollars including some members of the European Union." The author here goes on in this article to state that Britain had the golden Visa program and rescinded it so not all countries out there are all on board with selling residencies, selling nationality.

As far as Thailand getting into this citizenship by investment, I think a) it is relatively unlikely. Again I have gone through this analysis in other videos. I just don't think Thailand is an analogous country to places for example in the Caribbean or South America which offer citizenship by investment nor to places for example in the EU. They are just not analogous. Places for example in the EU, they may have enough capital in their national capital if you will that it is not a real burden to be bringing in a large segment; and yes I understand we are talking about high net worth individuals so it is not like substantial numbers of refugees or something but Thailand is just not either of those venues, it is different.

Just kind of in my opinion, again nationality I think is probably a little bit too far. Residence or something that is effectively residence I definitely can see where something like that may be a good idea especially to drum up some much needed interest in Thailand from a travel standpoint as well as possibly from a foreign investment standpoint.