Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Board of Investment in Thailand and basically the question is “are they reorganizing”? I posed the question before "do they have Visa issuance powers?" which they don't directly it looks like to me, but it does look like they are reorganizing.

I made some bullet points based on some research I have done from various locations but based on sort of recent discussion in the Thai Government it looks like that the Foreign Service division overseas with respect to BOI is going to be somewhat reformatted, retrofitted however you want to look at it and it is going to be set up, its main focus is going to be the sort of promote Thai business competitiveness in certain targeted areas. The other thing they want to do is go ahead and coordinate BOI overseas so that they can better coordinate with Ministry of Affairs, I think in an effort to better facilitate issuance of these proposed Long-Term Residence Visas. As we have discussed, not technically a Resident Visa, a very long term Non-Immigrant Visa is the way I look at it but it does not confer Lawful Permanent Residence. But these new visas are being rolled down. For the most part it looks like they are going to be issued overseas although there has been some talk about them, it maybe have something to do with Immigration here. There presently is back and forth between BOI and Immigration and things like the One-Stop Service Centre facilities.

So again it kind of remains to be seen exactly how this is going to play out but it does look like steps have been taken to sort of reorganize BOI to some extent, so as to provide them with the ability to better assess folks who are looking to get for example an LTR Visa or to come and do business in the various Free Trade Zones of Thailand. So this is some interesting stuff; I think we are kind of in some interesting times here. We will certainly keep people updated on this topic as the situation evolves.