Financial Hub Board taps 6 target businesses to set up bases in Thailand

Phao Bhum' reveals that the Financial Hub board has approved the financial center legal framework, attracting 6 target businesses to set up bases in Thailand, setting up a small board to draft new laws, to be submitted within 3 weeks, confident that it will be submitted to the Cabinet in 2024. Mr. Phao Bhum Rojanasakul, Deputy Minister of Finance, revealed after the first meeting of the Committee on Policy and Drafting Laws for the Establishment of a Financial Hub that the meeting approved the framework for establishing a global financial hub in 7 main areas as follows: 1. Target businesses are financial businesses, including commercial banking, payment systems and payment services, securities, futures, digital asset, insurance, and other businesses as specified by the Committee. 2. Target business operators include juristic persons and branches of foreign juristic persons that provide services to juristic persons or individuals who are not resident in Thailand (Non-residents) and are prohibited from soli citing and providing services to customers in Thailand (No Solicitation). 3. Scope of business operations: The first phase will be businesses that raise funds from abroad to invest abroad (Out-out), while Phase 2 will consider businesses that raise funds from abroad to invest in Thailand (Out-in). 4. Bangkok and its vicinity must be the location in the first phase. 5. Conditions on business locations: Minimum conditions must be set, such as employment, business duration, and office location, etc. The Financial Center Regulatory and Promotion Committee is authorized to set conditions and criteria. 6. Establish a new One-stop Authority (OSA) for Financial Services Commission as a government agency that is not a government department or state enterprise… The OSA's duty is to determine the guidelines for promoting target businesses and various benefits, both monetary benefits such as tax benefits, etc., and non-monetary benefits such as Fast Track VISA, approval of foreign work permits (Work Permit), employme nt, etc., and to determine related conditions and announce the criteria, methods, and conditions for applying for a license, and to consider approving, granting, issuing licenses, or granting consent or accepting registration to operate target businesses, etc. 7. Benefits (initial proposal) are under the authority of OSA, namely, juristic persons classified as large multinational companies must comply with the GloBE Rules of Pillar 2, and in the case of other juristic persons, they can set a lower tax rate than in the case of juristic persons that are large multinational companies, by setting a tiered tax or a flat rate. For personal income tax, it may be considered a concessional rate. For withholding tax on dividends and interest that business operators under the project pay to the parent company or affiliated companies abroad, it may be considered a concessional rate. 'Today, a committee has been set up to draft the law, consisting of several sectors, which are sub-committees including the Royal Decree Of fice, the Bank of Thailand, and two regulatory agencies, to draft a new law. We have been given three weeks to present it to the main board, and the Ministry of Finance will be present before entering the process of opening for public hearings. We expect to present it to the Cabinet by December,' said Mr. Pao-phum. Source: Thai News Agency