The Remittance of Tom Yam Restaurant Entrepreneurs in Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of the paper was to investigate the remittance behaviors of Tom Yam restaurant entrepreneurs to their families in the southern border provinces. These restaurant entrepreneurs were Muslin immigrants from the said provinces of Thailand, and were currently living in Malaysia. This study was a quantitative study to survey among Tom Yam immigrant restaurant entrepreneurs in Malaysia. The results of the study showed that 67.3 percent of them made such remittance to their families: 7,651.51 bath per time, totaling approximately 60,015.87 baht per year and 8.66 times of the remittance in a year. However, it should be noted that 32.7 percent of the survey’s respondents claimed that no remittance was made by them as they had no family staying in the southern border provinces of Thailand. Concerning those making the remittance to their families, the majority of them applied informal transfers via their migrant networks or even went to Thailand to give their family such money. The remittance made to their families was applied for their daily consumptions as well as human capital investments. The findings could probably gear the government and other relevant authorities to be more attentive to remittance made by the Tom Yam restaurant Thai Muslim immigrant entrepreneurs. Additional channels for remittance transfer from Malaysia to Thailand should, for instance, be Provided.