Escape from it all (How to survive South East Asia)

I am sure many people living in Europe and the US have harboured dreams of escaping the drudgery of day to day life of long working hours, unpredictable lousy weather, and less spare money left at the end of the month than ever before. There comes a time in most people’s lives where for many reasons, maybe the kids have grown up, divorce, or you have just finished your mortgage, or whatever, and you need a change of scenery.

This is often the situation with the 40 something’s who arrived for the first holiday in tropical South East Asia and a large percentage decide to stay, in fact the vast majority of expatriates now living in South East Asia arrived at the same conclusion; which was they want the holiday to last, understandable really, you have probably done 20 plus years at work back home with no more breaks other than a couple of  weeks here and there to go to local destination package holidays, and the time you had surgery, so there has got to be more to life than just the work hasn’t there?

There is an old saying that goes; how do you make a small fortune in South East Asia? Answer; Come with a big fortune!

If you start looking for a job here you will be in for a massive shock, it is very difficult to find a simple job in this part of the world. Work Permits and the governments make it very difficult, for example in Thailand the vast majority of people working are English teachers, makes sense, because that’s a job that’s the indigenous people can do really, yet these teachers struggle all the time to get work permits through agencies. The rest of the people here are either lucky enough to have been given an expat job placement from their home countries, or they have come with enough money to start a business, and that is a lot of money, because to get one work permit in Thailand you need 4 Thai people to be employed full time, and be able to demonstrate 2 million baht ($60,000) in the bank. Compared that to a Business I started in my home country which cost $30 for registration!

The internet has given creative people a lot more ways to make money and live in countries other than their domicile, and a web designer can build websites for people anywhere in the world, they can charge local prices, and get the money sent to South East Asia and the money generally means 5 times more here. Or the people who buy and sell products online and sell to their home countries through sites like EBay.

 Contact with family members back home is instant and a fraction of the price it was say 20 years ago, I know more about what my teenage offspring do online, whilst I am here in Thailand, than if I was sat at home watching the snow in UK!

There is also a plethora of business opportunities for people who want to tap into the experience of people who have been here for a while and have built a great network of people and already have everything set up,  so you come along and invest in these business and through your own due diligence and through trust and transparency you could be watching a fantastic business through to an exit strategy and watching your initial investment grow many times over, or lose the lot (well I did say YOUR due diligence!).

The team at biz-find work with many companies and have a great network of people at the chambers and business clubs, if you would like to know more about business opportunities in South East Asia, and about living here, contact us we can give you many to see, and introduce you to the networking scene and or intro you to the right people, just don’t expect a job, unless you are have the right passport!

Contact Netmedia for advice on setting up business in the Far East