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Thai cabinet on Tuesday agreed that the country’s long-stay visa for tourists aged over 50 can be extended to a maximum of 10 years from the current one year, though the visa holder still have to report to immigration police every 90 days.

Apisit Chaiyanuwat, vice minister at the Prime Minister’s Office, said after the meeting of the cabinet that the 10-year long-stay visa, set for tourists aged over 50, has other requirements.A foreigner seeking the visa must have a minimum monthly income of 100,000 baht (about 2,777 U.S. dollars) or a minimum deposit of three million baht (about 83,333 U.S. dollars) in a bank account and it has to be maintained for at least a year.

Besides, they have to have a health insurance lasting a minimum of one year and worth a minimum of 1,000 U.S. dollars.According to Apisit, the visa will be valid initially for five years and could be renewed for another five and the visa fee was set at 10,000 baht.

Though got a 10-year long-stay visa, one still have to report to immigration police every 90 days as before.The prolonged visa aimed to promote medical and wellness tourism while the target groups are visitors from many countries, such as China, Japan, India, United States and the United Kingdom.

Tourism is a key contributor to the Thai economy and one of the biggest tourist attractions is shopping. As it stands currently, most tourists are only familiar with Siam Paragon – but that will change very soon. Bangkok’s biggest shopping mall is about to get bigger. The Mall Group (same operator as Siam Paragon) plans to invest THB20 billion into building ‘’Bangkok Mall’’ which is 3X the size of Siam Paragon.

Sitting on 160,000 square meters of land, Bangkok Mall will be the biggest mall in Thailand when it completes in Year 2021. Under the concept “City within the City,” Bangkok Mall will have a water park, theme park, department stores, cinemas and offices. The LINE Sukhumvit 101 is just 2 BTS stops away from the upcoming Bangkok Mall, providing us great potential capital appreciation in the future, when the mall completes. Our clients in Hong Kong had first pick of units, and attracting close to 700 customers attended over the weekend.

Above: Close to 700 investors attended the weekend exhibition to preview BTS & Sansiri’s exclusive project, The LINE Sukhumvit 101.

Above: Terence Chan, Director of Golden Emperor, provided a presentation on the BTS-Sansiri project and Bangkok’s new Bangkok Mall.

Above: Vaulted ceiling features in every unit, ranging from 11.15 feet to 18.04 feet in height. The extended space renders the room airy and spacious.

Above: We have exclusively reserved high floors units for our clients to choose from.

Our team has spent considerable time studying THE LINE Sukhumvit 101  , if you are interested, please contact us. We may be able to arrange for one of our sales representatives to catch you up on what we have presented at the roadshow. Recent presentation topics included:

1. Familiarisation with key areas in Bangkok
2. Bangkok property market updates
3. Understanding foreign ownership of Thai properties
4. Exploring financing alternatives for foreigners
5. Buying and selling costs (i.e. taxes, stamp duty and etc)
6. Leasing and property management services
7. Specific unit recommendations
8. Booking process

Contact us by emailing us at contact @goldenemperor.com or calling us at (852) 3998 3003.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Thailand earned some 627.04 billion baht (18 billion U.S. dollars) from tourism in the third quarter of 2016 with a year-on-year increase of 12.22 percent, Thai government said Friday.

Among the total revenue, Some 410.76 billion baht (12 billion USD) was earned from over 8 million foreign tourists, said Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul in a press conference.

According to her, Chinese mainland tourists, accounting for over 30 percent of all foreign tourists, contributed some 123.61 billion baht (3.5 billion USD) for the kingdom from July to September, representing an year-on-year increase of 15.67 percent.

China has been the country providing the most tourists to Thailand in recent years.

As for the other two major markets for Thai tourism, 1.2 million European tourists brought some 86.87 billion baht (2.5 billion USD) to the country while 2.2 million visitors from ASEAN countries contributed some 67.6 billion baht (2 billion USD), Kobkarn mentioned.

Thai government predicts that the country can earn a total revenue of 2.49 trillion baht (71 billion USD) from tourism throughout 2016.

In the press conference, Kobkarn said the government will try to develop Thailand into an hub of air transportation to attract more tourists around the world.

Source:Xinhua

Korean travel retailer The Shilla Duty Free will formally open its downtown duty free store on Phuket in coming days.

A spokesman told The Moodie Davitt Report: “The Phuket store is undergoing final preparation before the official opening.”

The new store, operated in a joint venture with local Thailand partners, represents a new landmark for the island, the retailer claimed. It will offer a diverse duty free shopping experience, including luxury goods, beauty and fashion names and Thailand brands.

“The Phuket store is designed to ensure a pleasant and memorable duty free shopping experience for visitors,” the spokesman said. “It is located in a highly accessible area in a popular tourism spot and the building will enhance the overall customer experience through shopping, dining and leisure.

“The Shilla Duty Free Phuket store will offer an unparalleled duty free shopping experience,” the spokesman claimed.

Shoppers purchase at the store with subsequent pick-up at Phuket International Airport

Souce:moodiedavittreport

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has tied up with two state banks and state agencies in Thailand to set up a scheme that would help promote the country’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) abroad using Alibaba’s platform, the Bangkok Post reported.

At least 20 SMEs were chosen to break into the business-to-business (B2B) export markets with assistance from Alibaba, SME Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of Thailand (Exim Bank) and the Industrial Promotion Department.

The two banks have selected the 20 pilot companies from among their clients. The companies will take free e-commerce courses from Alibaba staff to train them on how to use the platform. They will also have the opportunity to study Alibaba’s customers’ data to help them understand the demands of their businesses.

“After that we will let these SME owners decide themselves whether they will go abroad through Alibaba’s platform or not, because using Alibaba’s channel to export will entail more costs than using the B2B platform by themselves,” SME Development Bank’s president Mongkol Leelatham said.

According to Mongkol, the pilot firms, which sell mostly innovative products with a shelf life of at least one year, must have proper financial and accounting management of their businesses.

“SMEs in provincial areas are our focus as they have a lot of potential but lack marketing knowledge and opportunities compared with those in Bangkok,” the bank president said.

The report said that the pilot project aims to inspire other SMEs to use B2B to expand their markets overseas.

“There are at least 300,000 SMEs across the country that have the potential to connect to business operators in other countries via e-commerce platforms. We hope we can encourage these groups to join us in driving the country towards Thailand 4.0,” Mongkol said.

According to the report, about 24,000 SMEs out of 300,000 have the potential to go directly to export markets while 44,000 of them can do it through local distributors.

“This is because the export-import documents are very complicated,” Mongkol explained. “Only those who are experienced in documentation for exports and imports can manage it by themselves. The e-commerce platform will reduce the complications stemming from documentation but the exporters also need to adjust themselves in terms of goods delivery as they should be able to send merchandise within 24 hours.”

Pisit Seriwiwattana, president of Exim Bank, however, said that B2B does not require much documentation, which makes it totally different to the business-to-customers (B2C) model used by online sellers.

The training venue will be provided by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC), which has also joined the scheme. The university hopes to recruit at least 20,000 SMEs to join Alibaba’s e-commerce training programme within 12 months.

About 600 Thai companies are currently using Alibaba’s platform, the report said.

Source:yibada.com