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Monday, August 24, 2009

Economy in Shambles, Politics a Mess, King gives a unity speech, Time for xenophobic stories in press

Bangkok Post

About 90% of beach land in Phuket is controlled by foreigners through Thai nominees, a leading research body has found.

A similar situation exists in other prime tourism destinations in provinces such as Chiang Mai and Rayong.

Local officials and legal experts have helped clear the way for foreign investors to take control of the country's rice farms and property in resort provinces, according to research on foreign land ownership by the Thailand Research Fund.

TRF called a seminar on the research findings yesterday attended by economics and legal scholars.

There recently has been speculation that foreign businessmen, particularly from the Middle East, were snapping up rice fields in the central plains and elsewhere through proxy local companies.

Transnational business consortiums were said to be holding the land through Thai nominees, which is against the law.

Typical. What is it about the Thai media that when the country is in a crisis, they have to find some excuse to go after foreigners. Comical yet pathetic in their predictability.

3 comments:

David Higgs said...

The 90% land story is written by Neo nationalists in a classic finger pointing away from the real (economic shambles) problem exercise. A ‘blame the Ferangs’ attempt at dodging the responsibility of making a total mess of the economy. It is a dangerous departure, because foreigners will lose even more confidence (if that is possible). there is a naive school of thinking, that because Thailand was so ‘export’ oriented over the last decade, they don’t need the ‘Ferangs’. Exports are down 40% now. In a way the right wing want to punish the poor for supporting Thaksin by putting them under pressure to survive, they might worry about eating and not politics!
The next coup will be interesting.It might not be lead by the yellow shirts

Saep Illi! said...

i dont think you should see it as uniquely 'thai'.

Most countries are the same! In America who do we blame when the economy goes wrong - japanese, outsourcing to India, China sweatshops. I think we imprisioned all japanese during world war 2 as well..not a very nice thing...

Unknown said...

It's probably because there wasn't another panda birth this week.