Why are some countries like Burma, Thailand so stingy with visas giving only one or two month stay?

Dingleberry

Burma/Myanmar and Thailand are both stingy with visas, but for two completely different reasons.

Burma is ruled by a military junta that's deeply suspicious of any outside influence and deeply protective of how they run the country. They're more concerned with control than tourism money. Even during the floods there last year, they kept Thai and international charities and NGOs at the Thai border, even though the charities and NGOs had much-needed supplies to help the victims of the floods. Eventually much of it did get across, but it was late and distributed by the Burmese army. The Burmese generals want the minimum of people visiting their country in case they try to destabilize it. Paranoia, I guess.

In Thailand, it's simply the amount of people wishing to make permanent residence there. Thailand is one of the world's most beautiful places and since the 1970s, tourists have flooded the place. Tourists have always been welcome, but when it became apparent that retirees were looking to retire there in large numbers and backpackers to spend a year or so working in bars etc, ordinary Thai people began to get squeezed out. Foreigners were buying up everything that moved and pricing Thais out of owning their own homes and businesses.

So the Thai government enacted stringent laws on who could and couldn't work in the country, who could own property and who could live there. As a foreigner, you can only work in Thailand for which you can prove there is no Thai person available for the job. In practice, that means only highly skilled jobs or teaching in language schools. No foreigners can own land and can only purchase an apartment as long as more than 50% of apartments in the complex are Thai-owned.

So now on to travel visas and residency. You can only retire there if you can prove a substantial retirement income (i.e. pension). Visas are strictly controlled to 30 days at a time to stop thousands of foreigners just entering on a 6 month tourist visa, leaving the country for a short period and then getting a fresh visa. Previously when they had longer visas, these were used by expats to effectively live there, only leaving Thailand for a day or two a year in order to get a fresh 6 month visa.

People still do it - they're called visa runs - but it's basically a hardcore small group of people who are willing to live in Thailand by jumping across the border to Cambodia/Vietnam/Burma every 30 days.

There are too many people in love with the notion of living in Thailand or hanging around the country for a year at a time. The 30 day visa is enough to give people a good holiday and still protect the Thai people's interests. Even if you could stay for longer, pretty much all jobs are off-limits to you so where would you find the funds to live there jobless for 6 months or a year?

sheenyous

i don't know about burma but i do know about thailand since im thai.
well, thy want to give thai people the chances first about business , residence and other stuff.

Sweetharttt

Perhaps they want to keep their citizens' money in the country.

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