OPINION

Lease plan caveats

Re: "PM allays foreign lease fears", (BP, June 24). Given that attempts by previous governments to allow foreign land ownership and the moribund condition of the property market, PM Srettha's initiative to introduce 99-year leases as an alternative to freehold is laudable.

This development would probably benefit far more Thais than foreigners and could make financing of leasehold property more attractive to lenders. However, I see several caveats.

Firstly, Thai leasing laws are rather basic and do not allow for automatic transferability of leases, which means there can be no secondary market in leasehold property and that heirs have no automatic right to inherit leases. Lease contracts can deceptively be made to look as if lessees have these rights, but since they are not supported by statutory law, they cannot be enforced by the Land Department without the lessor's consent at the time of transfer. Even the lessee's rights under the original lease are not binding on a new lessor if the freehold has changed hands. This means that banks cannot be expected to offer mortgages on leasehold property, even with 99-year leases. The inability to sell leasehold property or pass it to their heirs will limit foreign buyers' interest.

While I consider this a step in the right direction, the announcement by the Revenue Department in September 2023 of a tax on foreign remittances, followed up more recently by another announcement that it will introduce a tax on global income, whether remitted or not, is utterly counterproductive to the government's efforts to attract more foreign investment to the property sector. In conclusion, 99-year leases with appropriate supporting legislation would definitely be a positive for Thais, but it might not be enough to offset the destruction of foreign demand for Thai property caused by new tax laws on foreign remittances and income.

Reader unfriendly

Re: "Researcher finds fossilised dino teeth", (BP, June 27).

The article is a perfect example of what is wrong with far too many news reports we see in the Post's coverage -- it is little more than an indigestible regurgitation of facts -- without attempts to analyse or make the material comprehensible to the average reader. You would need to be a well-informed palaeontologist to make sense of the spew of scientific jargon which comprises the majority of the article.

Fossil teeth are one thing, but the Post's lazy publication of reports put out by government PR departments touting departmental triumphs is a deplorable abrogation of the Fourth Estate to hold the government accountable for what it says and does.

Credit crunch

Re: "Loans, guarantees part of 'Ignite' vision", (Business, June 12).

SMEs in Thailand are in urgent economic overview. Despite the fact they make up 99% of businesses in the country, SMEs in Thailand receive only 18% of outstanding credit from commercial banks and contribute 35% of GDP. This is an outcome of insufficient credit disbursement in the economy.

In other countries, commercial banks, with the direction of central banks, limit credit access in the non-productive sectors to stabilise the economy. The commercial banks concentrate on rural investments for the extremely poor, especially women.