“Chinese businessmen are flocking to northern Thailand and marrying local Thai women to make it easier to open businesses.”
This is news to me but the strategy doesn’t seem that surprising to me. I
think the one thing that sort of surprises me is how the Thais aren’t
trying to put up a stiff fight to this increased competition. Perhaps they’ll
start working on it. Especially since it mentions that the Chinese have
put up resistance to Thai exports to China.
Chinese importers have the edge over their Thai counterparts as Thais usually cannot cannot speak Chinese well and have poor credit records despite having been in the trade for two to three decades.
Moreover, local regulations make it easier for Chinese to come here while Thais suffer many inconveniences in doing business in China, she said.
One thing that was not mentioned much is what is in it for the women.
According to a manager at a Thai-Chinese shipping firm:
the women have a much better standard of living once they get married.
So I think there you have it. The women aren’t getting a bum deal out of
this comparitively. What will happen? Who knows.
