How many guesthouses, bars and restaurants in Pattaya are in reality owned outright by farangs, but on paper the business is owned by a "company" with a few Thai nationals' names on the official government register? The answer is very, very many. Those farangs are shitting their pants right about now. How many of them get their business visas and work permits through their own "company"? Some stand to lose everything, if, in fact, their registered Thai partners are not actually involved in the running of that business. Old law, but brand new push for enforcement. I hope the junta gets a nice long run in power. This shit is getting interesting. It's a fascinating social experiment.

pattayaone.net wrote:Thai Nominee Shareholding Crackdown in Pattaya announced by DSI
Posted on August 22, 2014 at 1:16 am

On Friday at Nong Nooch Gardens in Jomtien, a meeting led by the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) was held to discuss plans to begin a crackdown on foreign business people who use Thai Nominee Shareholders to effectively control Thai companies.

At the meeting were over 100 delegates from the DSI, The Ministry of Commerce, Tourism Authority of Thailand and representatives from the public and private sector. They gathered to discuss how some Foreign business operators have exploited the Thai Nominee Shareholding loophole for many years, despite it being illegal under the Foreign Business Act of 1999.

The DSI would now like to see this loophole closed and investigations started on companies which use Thai Shareholders but are effectively controlled by Foreign Nationals.

They are particularly concerned with businesses associated with Tourism and at the meeting discussed how departments can cooperate better in the future to ensure these companies are detected and prosecuted if found to be in contravention of Thai Law.

- See more at: http://www.pattayaone.net/pattaya-news/ ... gl5Vs.dpuf

well they warned about this long time ago but nothing happend and now its time.On top of all the visa BS, this will kill many business in all turist areas for sure.

hahaha yet again this new crackdown will backfire on the thai tourism.

as usual the thais have a hard time thinking in terms of action/reaction, the reason so many farangs have to do these tricks is because of the ridicolous visa rules in thailand and their outright anti-foreign xenophobia in business.

all these guys running bars and guesthouse would be more than happy to be fully legal but they just can't.
you reap what you sow.

phuketrichard wrote:change;

this will kill many business in all turist areas for sure.

to'
this will kill SOME ( less than 10%) business in all turist areas for sure.

yeah but it's still a lot of money that will not come back in their pockets.
these guys will move to Philippines or Cambodia and sooner or later even the sex biz will move elsewhere.

besides, new crackdowns can pretty much put the nail in the coffin, i think the junta is not as tolerant as their predecessor about the ongoing unregulated sex trade.

i wonder... how much do those 10% account for the enjoyment of tourists there? as in, an english bar run by an englishman probably has more appeal to english tourists than an english bar run by a thai guy.

OrangeDragon wrote:i wonder... how much do those 10% account for the enjoyment of tourists there? as in, an english bar run by an englishman probably has more appeal to english tourists than an english bar run by a thai guy.

the worrying trend is : they just don't want us, and where we're allowed to run biz they still put lots of red tapes and discriminating laws.

i'm free to open a shack selling cheap beer in HK, Macau, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, but most of the rest of asia is against me as a foreigner and will not allow me to buy land nor to get a citizenship or permanent residence, on top of this they can change visa rules overnight, i'll have to bribe the police or the local mafia, and facing the unfair competition from the local suppliers and deal with widespread corruption every fucking day, and since i'll have to make my biz a sort of joint venture with my wife or a local business partner i'll also run the risk of being totally screwed behind my back.

still thinking about making biz in Thailand ? think again ...

My guess is that only some popular bars and guesthouses will be affected. They can't really be considering shutting down out the Italian owner of an authentic Italian restaurant. The Russian owners of the big Walking Street Go-Go bars should be concerned, though.

I have heard so many times from whinging expats how Thailand "needs" farang punters for their money and their business abilities, or the Thai economy would collapse. I always knew that to be bullshit. Maybe it was partially true at some point in the past, but not even remotely true anymore. Tourism is only 10% of the Thai economy and farangs are only half of that. Considering that probably 95% of farang tourists won't notice any difference under any of the recent law enforcement drives, we are talking about a tiny percentage (5% of 5% = 0.25%) of the GDP even remotely affected by these crackdowns. Those actually affected, like me, however, make up a sizable majority of the local forum posters/bloggers, and let's face it...it's a good story to discuss. It gets local expats riled up, out of the fear of uncertainty. Well blown out of proportion, but still good for page views and arguments.