The Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, Dr Somkid Jatusripitak, has recently revealed that the total amount of investment promotion application in 2018 reached THB 901.7 billion (≈ EUR 24.6 billion), which exceeded the original target by 25 percent. Investment applications in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) accounted for more than THB 680 billion (≈ EUR 18.5 billion). Largest-scale investment projects have been in the areas of petrochemical and electrical vehicle (EV) production.
Deputy Prime Minister Dr Somkid Jatusripitak said after a meeting with the Board of Investment (BOI) on investment promotion policies in 2019 that last year, BOI received 1 626 investment applications with projects that had a total value of THB 901.7 billion (≈ EUR 24.6 billion). Both the application number and the investment value were higher than those in 2017, by 3 percent and 43 percent, respectively.
In addition, the applications’ value in 2018 was 25 percent higher than the set target of THB 720 billion (≈ EUR 19.6 billion). As many as 84 percent of the application projects, worth THB 758 billion (≈ EUR 20.7 billion) in total, were in the targeted industries.
Within that amount, THB 539 billion (≈ EUR 14.7 billion) was invested in the five new S-Curve industry sectors, which include digital, medical hub, biofuels and biochemicals, robotics and automation, and aviation.
A total of THB 219 billion (≈ EUR 5.9 billion) was invested in the first S-Curve industry sectors; namely, agriculture and biotechnology, electrical and electronics, automotive and auto parts, tourism and food processing.
Duangjai Asawachintachit, BOI’s Secretary General, said that in 2019 BOI will continue to focus on marketing activities targeted at investments that will help create more local value-added and bring higher technologies.
A series of support measures have been issued to attract these investments. Proactive foreign direct investment (FDI) seeking activities will be organized in key targeted areas of Japan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the United States (US) and Europe.
