Thailand to further ease foreign exchange regulations

The Bank of Thailand (BoT) plans to further relax foreign exchange regulations to facilitate business operations and strengthen the country's foreign exchange ecosystem in the long run, reported local media.

In the fourth quarter of this year, the central bank is scheduled to implement additional relaxations as part of the third phase of its foreign exchange ecosystem initiative, which will focus on easing regulations related to cash flows for Thai citizens.

Chananun Supadulya, director of the BoT's Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department, said that key changes include raising the annual outflow limit from $50,000 to 200,000, reducing restrictions on negative lists and modifying foreign exchange management rules under the national pooling method.

Accordingly, businesses will be able to borrow in local currency for both domestic and international operations with greater flexibility in foreign exchange management.

This means that foreign companies operating in Thailand can finance their foreign parent companies in THB, or Thai companies can provide financing in THB to their overseas subsidiaries.

Chananun noted that BoT has continued relaxing foreign exchange rules under the FX ecosystem initiative, starting with the first phase from 2019 to 2021, followed by the second phase in 2022-23.

It has received positive feedback for the FX ecosystem development initiative as evidenced by the number of foreign currency deposit (FCD) accounts, which has grown by 21.9% from 2019 to 851,993 accounts currently, she added.