The event was held in an informal way and Danny Annan started out with a presentation of himself, and what the embassy is doing in Thailand. Many of the present guests haven’t met the ambassador before and thus gave an update on the embassy activities so far.
The focus was on business activities and on the consular services. The Ambassador also emphasized the eagerness and efforts they are doing in getting the import duty down on dairy products, especially cheese, and to get the Thai government to relax those restrictions but also doing this together with knowledge exchange on farming practices assisting Thailand in becoming more effective and sustainable. Waste management, how to handle various kinds of waste properly and recycling were also mentioned as an area of interest.
During the Q&A session, visa issues were brought up by the participants, and especially the recent long wait times there were on visas. It was mentioned that once the application was cleared from the visa company, it will not take more than 15 days to get it approved by the embassy. This did come to a surprise to some of the participants and more experiences were shared with Danny and this was promised to be checked once back in Bangkok.
Danny mentioned that besides visas for Thai nationals, they also had many other countries to handle as well, like India, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and a few more, so they are not bored in that perspective.
After the presentations, people mingled and networked. DTCC Board Director Mr. Michael Nordstrom represented the DTCC Chamber at this local event on the Eastern Seaboard.