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News You Can UseThis page is for concise practical news matters that busy people may miss, especially if they are located overseas, and which might be important to a broad audience. It is not intended to be a "news about Thailand" page (see the online newspapers). I have two separate pages for website updates in chronological order and for more personal commentary. Most items noted in one of the three pages is not noted on the other two. This page will stay brief. For updates by email, so you don't need to check this page periodically looking for things, just request here.
Taxis from AirportJuly 31, 2007 This may not be news, but I do know there are some new regulations, changes, and protests in regard to taxis and private vans at the airport. In any case, when I came back from Singapore, I experienced a new taxi system at the airport. They ask you where you are going, reference a table, and tell you the rate. The meter is not used. The rate quoted is twice as much as the normal rate, and you pay it all to the taxi, none to the airport staff. In addition, you pay any tollway tolls. I investigated this further. The reason for the double rate is that the taxis there are airport-only, so you also pay for their return trip to the airport. These taxis are not supposed to pick up customers in-between, but just return to the airport queue. They work for the company contracted to serve the airport. They may give a 20 baht tip back to the staff, but it's not required. The government is regulating taxis and vans at the airport due to hucksters preying upon tourists and non-Thai speaking foreigners. There was a huge protest about this in mid-July (hit the newspapers and TV news), but the government stood firm. If you want to avoid twice fare, then you can go to the arrivals area and get a taxi dropping someone off at the airport. However, if you don't speak Thai, maybe you should go down to the ground level and use this service. There are English speaking people to get you to your destination, and even at twice the normal rate, it's still a lot cheaper than taxis in western countries! Again, you must pay any tollway fares in addition. Mobile Phone Usage Banned While DrivingJuly 10, 2007 "The Cabinet yesterday approved draft legislation prohibiting motorists from using mobile phones or any other communication apparatus while driving. However, it said hands-free communication devices were acceptable. The law now heads to the National Legislative Assembly for approval." Reference: The Nation newspaper There are now notices displayed around town about this, such as banners above the expressway entrance. Unfortunately, their are only in Thai (which I can read somewhat), without English. Monday, July 2, Interview with Thailand Guru on BBC WorldYes, that was me on the BBC World News on July second, in a field interview with Bureau Chief Jonathan Head:
A program was airing on July 2, where my interview tour was seen by about 65 million viewers worldwide. It was about the 10 year anniversary of the 1997 Asia Economic Crash in which I gave the BBC World crew a tour of the worse hit project, Muang Thong Thani (see www.MTTBKK.com for Muang Thong Thani, BangKoK). After watching it a few times day and night :-), I eventually got these stills from my digital camera pointed towards my TV. I have worked in property development since 1995. Since this is literally "News", I put it in this News section ... Tuesday, May 1, is a National Holiday, Labor DayBanks will be closed, as will most offices.
American Citizens Services - Consular Outreach - Phuket, Pattaya, Udon ThaniThe next round of the ACS road show are as follows:
For more details, see http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/embassy/wwc/consularvisit042407.htm for info on these Consular Outreach trips.
Air Pollution Emergency in Northern ThailandMarch 2007 This problem has abated over time, but there's always a risk it could "flare up" again. Due to farmers burning waste in their fields, northern Thailand around Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai became very smoky, with air pollution particulate matter rising to the "emergency" level. Visibility was a problem, including for aircraft. It caused respiratory ailments in many people. There was an emergency ban on burning, but of course enforcing it, especially in neighboring countries, is quite a challenge. Old Bangkok Airport ReopenedMarch 2007 Problems with part of the new Suvarnabhumi airport have led the old Don Muang airport in northern Bangkok being reopened for some domestic flights starting in late March. No international flights will be rerouted, according to current plans. Problems in some runways and aircraft taxiways need to be repaired. This will mean closure of part of the airport's capacity. Already, inspection work has resulted in aircraft circling the airport during peak times, and some have even needed to land and refuel at the old U-Tapao airport in Chonburi (previously used during the Vietnam War for the B-52 bombers). The runway problems are the most serious problems because they could pose a danger, and the authorities are being cautious to not use questionable runways. There are additional problems in the airport building itself which don't affect safety. This is almost surely due to corruption. Forensic auditors say they see rampant corruption. I've seen this for 20 years, not only in Thailand but in Washington, D.C., both places where I have worked and witnessed quite disturbing corruption. Under-the-table kickbacks and good-ol-boy cronyism lead to the most technically competent and professional engineers with integrity being marginalized, while people who aren't really interested in quality, just money and politics, get the contracts and in turn aren't as competent (or interested) in doing great work, or even good work. (In Washington, D.C., it wasn't just engineers, it was up and down political and business ranks. Internet can help transparency, but the initiative must be taken and subsequently pushed thru all the way to the end sociopolitically.) (People are noting that these are additional nails in former PM Taksin Shinawatra's political coffin.)
Capital FlowsJanuary 28, 2007 Further to my earlier article below on the 30% reserve requirment for capital flows into Thailand, the Thai government has clarified who is affected. I should emphasize that it does not affect all money coming into Thailand! It's beyond the scope of this brief News notice section to go into details, but basically, if an investor can show convincingly that the money is not coming in for currency speculation, then they're generally OK and exempt. I think that journalism sensationalism (to sell more newspapers, website traffic, and resultant ads) has greatly exaggerated this issue to urban legend proportions, from what I've heard on the street over the past month. However, the Thai government fell flat on its face as regards making it clear to the general public who was affected and who was not, a public relations failure of serious proportions. Meanwhile, the baht has continued to strengthen. It's already dipped as low as 33 baht to the dollar this week, and it has strengthened by 5% over just the past week, though this has been a fairly exceptional week. I've written my long opinions about this in the Commentary section. Company Regulations Change - Preference vs. Ordinary SharesJanuary 10, 2007 A shocking and very important change is planned as regards the rules for companies, as passed by the new military government's cabinet, which affects companies with foreign stockholders and directors. Foreigners may not longer have majority voting rights in an ordinary company set up in Thailand. Furthermore, existing companies will be forced to make sure their foreign stock owners will sell or transfer enough of their stock to come into compliance! Primer: Thailand law has always stated that all companies must be majority Thai owned, which means that Thais must own 51% or more of the shares of stock in these companies, and be the majority number of shareholders, too. (The only exceptions are if the Board of Investment approves an exception, which affects only large companies with huge amounts of capital investment or hundreds of Thai employees, or else an American Treaty Company.) Foreigners commonly maintained control of the company by splitting the shares between "ordinary shares" and "preference shares", whereby for example each ordinary share had twice the voting power of a preference share but preference shares had dividend benefits. This way, a foreign founder/Director or group could own 49% of the shares but have 65% of the voting power. The Cabinet has passed this amendment, and if nothing happens to derail it (as is currently expected), it will go into effect around March or April, whereby existing companies will be given up to 2 years to come into compliance. The 51%-49% law was already a major deterrant to many serious entrepreneurs looking to set up a cutting edge company in Asia. The ordinary vs. preference shares was the only reason they would do so. The new military government already crashed the stock market with another incredibly stupid anti-foreign-investment surprise regulation on December 19 ... which they almost immediately retracted after the crash reached nearly 20% in one day. (See the news item below.) Foreigner confidence in the stability of key Thai regulations has taken two major hits in just one month. Later, the government came out to defend the regulations by implying that they would not be applied to all companies, but they haven't come out with any clearly stated guidelines. There are different "Annexes" based on the company's sector of business. Press reports state that all affected companies must report to the Ministry of Commerce to discuss their shareholding status. Imagine the queue. This is a most serious matter to countless companies. Suddenly, entrepreneurs who have invested so much money, time and effort are being forced to give up control of their company. This situation will be very closely monitored by Thailand Guru. Notably, creative and cutting edge people, who tend to be entrepreneurs of startup companies and small and medium size businesses, are what keep an economy competitive in the world. Many of these people come from overseas. Just look at the patent offices of Thailand and most other Asian countries vs. immigrant countries such as the USA and Australia -- as well as old Europe. The per capita inventor rates are very low in Asia. Asia has mainly copycats of western technology, and really needs more foreign mentors. (Notably, Rome, which was the origin of the great Roman Empire for which our A-z romanized written language comes from, was actually one of the poorest cities in the region about 2500 years ago, but was unique in that it welcomed foreigners from all over into the city. This attracted some of the greatest people, who left more oppressive regions. During its rise in power, Rome had a lot in common with America more than 2000 years later.) These new regulations are actually "protectionism" of establish domestic and foreign big businesses. By eliminating the ordinary vs. preference shares option, the government is driving away most foreign entrepreneurs, who will set up in India, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Philippines, etc., instead. What entrepreneur will follow such a dictatorial government's new regulations? It's absolutely nuts in this modern world. For those who do conform to the ordinary vs. preference shares system, they must set a shareholder's quorum to, for example, 70%, and never sign onto a shareholders takeover meeting. They may also be forced to resort to dodgy methods to maintain control, rather than the normal international method of preference vs. ordinary shares. Terrorism in Bangkok, ThailandDecember 31, 2006 The terrorist bombs in Bangkok on December 31 might have a significant impact on tourism, even though it shouldn't, and terrorism shouldn't affect any decision regarding whether to live and/or work in Thailand. I analyze this in my article on Terrorism in Bangkok, Thailand, which basically argues that your chances of being injured or killed by a terrorist bomb in Bangkok are quite small and that you run much higher risks of death or other detriment to your body from traffic accidents in your own country, natural health issues, your diet, or just the stress in your life. Terrorism should normally not affect any decision about living and working in Thailand, or your quality of life.
Thailand's International Internet/Voice Connection Broken by EarthquakeDecember 27, 2006 Suddenly on December 27, Internet was extremely slow and in fact many major parts of the world were unreachable, and recover has been slow. The cause is the earthquake in Taiwan which broke some of the undersea fiber optic cables which Thailand depends on, and damaging others. International capacity was dropped by more than 50%. Voice circuits were affected even worse. Thai news reports say that internet should improve in steps and be back to near normal in about 10 days. Voice circuits will take about a month. (Funny, we had a big high profile customer call wanting to pay a 2 year overdue bill for their website, thinking maybe we had done this to them intentionally, and being so nice! However, as soon as they found out the truth, everything changed back. It's no news in Thailand that many ostentatious high profile Thai clients live way beyond their means and simply don't pay their bills. We found out too late from other creditors. Take them to court or write it off. Is the time and expense worth it?) Stock Market Bunjee Crash - Black TuesdayDecember 19, 2006 In an incredible move, the military government announced that investors in Thailand who are moving money into Thailand in certain ways -- albeit poorly clarified by the Thai government -- must set aside 30% of their money into a "reserve" which they will get back after a year, and if invested money is moved out of Thailand in less than a year then it is taxed 10%. It was this incredible 30% "reserve" that mostly shocked investors. The Thai stock market plummeted nearly 20% in the first day before starting to bounce back after the government backtracked on these measures. The need for some kind of new regulations is clearly needed, due to "hot money" used for baht speculation. The value of the Thai baht was fluctuating largely due to manipulation by foreign fund pools. These people make their money by suddenly buying lots of Thai baht when it is slightly lower in value, which pushes it up to a higher value due to a slight shortage, and then selling their baht at this high value. They do nothing but move money between bank accounts, in a way which disrupts the economy and many businesses. A few rich people get richer, while wreaking havoc on a lot of hard working businesspeople. Baht fluctuation adversely affects exports and other more wholesome international business because the baht is not stable enough to make decisions on small margin transactions, and affects the timing of a lot of commerce that goes forward, or else its profitability. The new regulations were gross overkill, poorly clarified, and presented imcompetently as regards public relations, resulting in a lot of sensational misinformation. It should be properly understood. There has been tremendous flow of capital into Thailand over the past year, which has strengthened the baht, but this has been the case all over Asia, as investors move money out of the USA and into Asia where profitability and growth are better. Thailand is not any exception. Also, other Asian currencies have been appreciating at approximately the same rate as the Thai baht. After Asian currencies plummeted due to the 1997 Asia economic crash (except a few of those pegged too much by their governments), all the major ones have slowly climbed back and are approaching their previous strength relative to the US dollar. This means that a lot of people are saving Asian currencies rather than US dollars. The Thai baht hasn't done as well as other major Asian currencies, so many investors are seeing that the Thai baht could grow in value quite a bit more, and are choosing to put their money here. While bank interest rates in Thailand are low, where else can you see 5% increase in value relative to the dollar in just a month? The government simply fails to see this in a positive way, and doesn't know how to manage this inflow. Therefore, they are discouraging foreign capital inflow, because they aren't competent enough to manage it, in my opinion. Also, exporters are putting a lot of pressure on the government because their products become more expensive overseas as the baht strengthens in value. The "reserve" method announced is nothing unique or new. It was used in other places of the world with great success, most notably Chile. It's called the "Torbin tax". The problem in Thailand is that it was implemented and announced in a poorly managed way. Regarding the Thai stock market, it is my experience that relative to western stock market investors, Thai stock market investors tend to be more like gamblers than institutional investors, so it is no surprise to me that it could crash so quickly. (I wonder how much profit some people made from this quick fluctuation.) However, I don't think the overall Thai economy is so dependent on the stock market. In my view, the stock market is just one of many economic indicators, and a symptom rather than a cause. Some sort of regulation is needed as regards "hot money" and the baht's rapid fluctuation. Much smaller and simpler measures would be sufficient. You cannot deter a determined adversary, but you can deter about 90% of them by milder measures, whereby they will go after other, easier targets instead. In this case, it appears the government was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Stay tuned to find out what other measures will be taken to deal with "hot money". New Mobile Phone Dialing RulesDecember 2006 Due to many peoples' sudden inability to call mobile phones on December 1 because they were unaware of the announced change in dialing rules in Thailand, especially those outside Thailand, I've received a lot of messages and even some private investigation inquiries about girlfriends suddenly becoming unreachable by voice calls! To call a mobile phone, you must first put an 8 before the number. There is no change in calling land lines. For example, to dial my phone number:
0-1616-7903 before, calling within Thailand
+66-1616-7903 before, calling from overseas Again, and again, there is no change in calling land lines. Mobile phone numbers now have one more digit than land lines, and that digit is a leading 8. Also, no change about that 0 (zero). If you are inside Thailand, you always dial EVERY phone number by pressing 0 first. (No, it's not calling the 0perator.) Why, I don't know. Anyway, when calling overseas, you always drop (i.e., don't dial) the leading zero. Above are examples. One way to list your mobile and office/home numbers on two lines is like this:
Mobile: (+66-8 or 08) 1616-7903 However, it up to your style, of course. There seems to be no standard way or trend yet. New Visa RegulationsOctober 2006 Mainly in an effort to reduce the number of foreigners living in Thailand for long periods of time on 30-day visa-on-arrival border runs, including criminal elements, the Immigration Department issued new regulations, as was expected over the previous few months. This also affects tourist and retirement visas. More information is on the Thailand Guru page on Thailand visas Military CoupSeptember 19, 2006 This is covered in the news article on the Thai military coup of 2006 New Company Capital RegulationsAugust 15 2006 In an effort to deter the setup of "shell companies" using Thai "nominee shareholders", especially by foreigners for illegal or questionable purposes, all new companies' Thai shareholders are subject to investigation of their income if 40% or more of the shareholding is foreign, or a non-Thai is a director. The income of the Thai shareholders must come from themselves, not be a loan from the foreigner or some of the other loopholes, as shown by a bank book going back at least 6 months, or a document from the bank, or other evidence. This does not affect companies set up before this date. New Property Capital RegulationsMay 25, 2006 Companies buying land must now show where the money comes from, if there are foreign shareholders in the company. The money cannot come from foreign sources thru nominee shareholders. This is to stop the loophole of having shell companies controlled by foreigners buy property in Thailand on behalf of a foreign interest. Foreigners cannot own land in Thailand, but can own condominiums. Condominiums are not affected at all by this new regulation. The normal way for foreigners to have land in Thailand is by a 30 year lease, as discussed in the section on property on this website. The reason why foreigners cannot own land in Thailand is simple: Foreign entities, with their much greater wealth than Thai people and Thai companies, could take over Thailand. This property ownership situation will probably change at about the same time that Thais are allowed to enter western countries without a visa. These is just the natural situation in the world between most countries rich and relatively poor. The poor want to go to the rich countries to work, and the rich want to buy or invest in cheap land in the poor countries (which could drive property prices out of reach of the locals).
All news from October 2005 until well into 2006 has been lost and I don't know if/when it will be recovered. In October 2005, our new programmer moved new commentary to a fancy database format linked to a forum database. In mid-2006, he left to work for another company, and I switched the format back to editing my plain old HTML files, but I was unable to recover the commentary from his database. The fault is mine. I still haven't recovered the news before October 2005, but it seems rather obsolete now (admittedly a lame excuse). This page is for concise practical news matters that busy people may miss, especially if they are located overseas, and which might be important to a broad audience. It is not intended to be a general "news about Thailand" page (see the online newspapers). I have two separate pages for website updates in chronological order and for more personal commentary. Most items noted in one of the three pages is not noted on the other two. I have two separate pages for Most items noted in one of the three pages is not noted on the other two.
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