The British Chamber of Commerce Thailand (BCCT) hosted the monthly multi-chamber of commerce event for August. The hotel sponsor and venue was the Pullman Pattaya Hotel G which laid on a sumptuous feast of well-known British fare. This ranged from roast beef and Yorkshire pudding to fish & chips and many other signature dishes. All of this was over seen by Simon Angove, the new general manager and his excellent staff.
Before the networking event started, the BCCT asked Andrew McBean, MD of PKF Thailand, to cover the topic of, “Thai Labour Law, Work Permits and Visas: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”. PKF provided two excellent presentations. The first was from John Casella, who is a partner of PKF, whilst the second came from Chutinun Wannapirun, director of PKF Corporate Legal Services. Over sixty attendees heard about, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and went away with much food for thought. PKF Thailand has just opened up on the Eastern Seaboard and is the first of the major accounting & auditing, business advisory companies to have a fully staffed office in Pattaya.
The main event began as soon as the briefing had ended. The main sponsors were Axcel Electronics, Lucy Electric, Mazars, Budget Car Rental and Garden International School. The representative chambers were: BCCT, AmCham, AustCham, Beluthai, CanCham, GTCC, NTCC, NZTCC, SATCC and STCC. All were well represented and it was good to see the New Zealand Chamber take part with President Warren Boyes coming down from Bangkok and the local director, Steve Fraser, taking any and all questions on how to beat the All Blacks.
Simon Matthews, the immediate past chairman of BCCT, hosted the draw and led the events on stage. It was also good to see the new executive director of AmCham, Heidi Gallant, in attendance as well as some old, familiar faces like Greg Watkins (BCCT) and Brendan Cunningham (AustCham). Helmut Buchberger was also there from the Singapore-Thai Chamber of Commerce and Allan Riddell and Graham Macdonald were leading the South African charge.
Jack Levy, MD of Macallan Insurance Broker, was seen chatting to Tom Thompson of Pacific Cross and Carl Sellick of Lucy Electric was bemoaning the fact that he may miss some of Rugby Championship due to so much travel. Andrew McDowell from Vinarco as talking to Jimmy Howard about various subjects relating to the EEC and Frank Holzer, general manager of Tinfish and organizer of the monthly ESB Business Dinner at Mantra was delighted that he had secured speakers for the rest of the year.
All in all an excellent event which was thoroughly enjoyed by those who attended. The next multi-chamber event will be on Friday, 21st September and hosted by the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce – the venue has yet to be confirmed.
 |
 |
