• The Bank of Thailand will permit to qualified investors with more than 100 million baht of liquidity to directly invest in foreign equities, bonds, mutual funds and other financial assets, deputy governor Pongpen Ruengvirayudh told reporters Friday. Overseas investments will be limited to US$5 million per year, she said.
• In 2017, the BoT will relax the regulations further by allowing general retail investors to buy all types of securities.
• “The central bank is probably more comfortable letting funds flow out through residents rather than making it easier for foreign investors to move cash in and out,” said Shigehisa Shiroki, assistant general manager at Mizuho Bank Ltd’s treasury department in Bangkok. Orderly declines in the baht look acceptable to the central bank, he said, adding that the currency could weaken to 36 a dollar over the next few months.

Source: Bangkok Post

A quick few thoughts on this:

• Why does the BoT only allow a certain class of individuals the right to transfer funds offshore? Sounds rather unfair doesn’t it? “If you’re rich please feel free to move your money out of the country before it devalues further and before the rest of the population”
• Over time this is a positive policy by the BoT that allows freer movement of capital in/out of the country – I can’t even begin to describe the number of issues I used to have transferring funds outside of Thailand. It removes question marks on the minds of investors (FDI, property etc etc) on whether or not they can easily recover their investments and gains and theoretically should encourage more investment into the country