Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing expats and we are discussing investment here in Thailand and the two kind of go hand in hand. The reason I was thinking about this, I was reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Wealthy Foreigners to own small land holdings associated with homes here agreed in principle.

Really this part of doesn't really pertain to the title. I urge folks who are watching this video go read that article because there are various excerpts in here, a lot of insight in here; read the whole thing but I am just going to quote one excerpt. Quote: Growing expat community and inward investment are intertwined - new 10-year visa, more flexible working conditions approved by interior Ministry. Quoting further: "Over the last 2 years of the pandemic, Thailand's officials have also firmly established the overlapping links between Thailand's critically important foreign tourism industry and the country's growing foreign resident or expat Community which is also linked to attracting inward investment and talent into the Kingdom." So, I couldn't agree with that more. Hold on just a second and I will get to the analysis. Quoting further: "This initiative announced last year is progressing and has already led to a 10-year visa provision being approved by the Ministry of Interior. One was a new Long-Term Residency Visa for 10 years” (and again, I have gone into this, I don't mean to be semantic, these aren't residents. There is Permanent Residence in Thailand, this isn't it. It has an end date, they are 10 years long. Residency doesn't end). Quoting further: "in respect of those qualifying for the new initiative and the other was a measure that will allow foreigners more flexible working conditions in Thailand." In both circumstances there are a lot of caveats on this new Long-Term Visas. So as I have explained in other videos, I think this is only going to apply to a relatively narrow subset of prospective Expats.

But back to this point and this is key critical I think, the tourism community directly if you will sort of spills over into the Expat Community which directly spills over into foreign direct investment here in Thailand. Now it is relatively small in the sense that it has been in the past a large number of people with relatively small investment compared to some massive outfit that comes in and just dumps in millions of dollars but let me explain what I am getting at here. Somebody comes to Thailand for the first time. They stay two weeks; they love it; it is great; they fall in love with the country and they decide, "Man, I want to live there one day. I am a couple of years from my retirement. Maybe I will retire there and maybe set up a restaurant or a bar or a shop or something." Those people come back and they go ahead and do that. They set up a restaurant or a bar or a shop and that requires an inbound investment and so as I say one sort of spills over into the other. It is sort of like if you turn on a tap and water starts coming out and there is one bucket, it fills up and underneath it there is another bucket and then it fills up and then underneath that, that bucket fills up so again the tap though is tourism.

As we discussed in other videos we are really hoping to see Thailand scrap a lot of the more onerous restrictions and requirements in order to enter the Kingdom so we can see more tourists; thereby we can see more expats; thereby we can see more foreign direct investment here in the Kingdom of Thailand.