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Thailand Poised to Be Business Hub of ASEAN

Transcript of the above video:

In today's video, we're going to talk about some recent developments with respect to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations a.k.a. ASEAN, how ASEAN has created, certain business frameworks that will allow for sort of more fluid business relationships within the region, sort of on a regional scale where you've got you know companies that may have say a head office here in Bangkok, various branches and say Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, even Myanmar. Bangkok seems to be sort of poised to be in a position to be a significant corporate hub for those wishing to do business in the region.

To quote directly from a web, from an article on the Bangkok Post website, the article is entitled or the headline is “BOI tells Thai firms to look at expanding into ASEAN.” BOI is the Board of Investment here in Thailand. For those who aren't aware of what that is, we have other videos on this website or on this channel talking specifically about the Board of Investment a.k.a. BOI and we would encourage you to go ahead and check that out.

So speaking of the Thailand Overseas Investment Forum 2017 yesterday, BOI secretary-general…, I made a few comments to quote further “This will allow high companies to access other markets with lower tariffs and with other markets in general via special trade benefits.” ASEAN has with other regional trade agreements, the government wants Thai companies to take advantage more of ASEAN and trade agreements,” the BOI head that I noted earlier was quoted to say.

So what are we talking about here? Well these agreements that Aussie and has created a situation where if one has a regional for a corporate presence in one of the nations, one can sort of branch out there, can enjoy the benefits of a more regional business structure through use of sort of the Aussie and trade framework. And what I'm specifically talking about is what you're probably going to see happen more and more is the sort of so-called international operating headquarters or regional operating headquarters structure that's been created by the Ministry of Commerce here in Thailand that allows for certain trade benefits, certain work permit benefits, and certain exemptions from certain rules that apply to most companies that may not apply to a regional operating headquarters. All of this is coming together and is sort of the culmination that's resulting in a situation where one who wish to do business in Southeast Asia could go ahead and come into Thailand, set up a company and go ahead and for like a better term sort of punch above its weight due to the fact that there are these regional frameworks that allow that company to then essentially operate fairly easily within multiple jurisdictions with surround the Kingdom of Thailand. While at the same time, countries like say Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar which may not necessarily have the necessary infrastructure to maintain certain corporate administrative functions, those can be maintained here in Bangkok.

So things like a relatively modern banking system or relatively up-to-date systems for things like tax filings relative transparency, say what you will about the Thai sort of administrative operational structure within the bureaucracy, it is relatively transparent albeit it's sometimes difficult for non-Thai speakers to understand it because obviously, it's in the Thai language firms like ours do assist foreign nationals in understanding how the systems and the frameworks and the administrative obligations here in Thailand operate. Our corporate services team can provide insight into ways of better maintaining regulatory compliance tax compliance and sort of diminishing the administrative burden associated with doing business not only in a tight texts but in a regional context as well.