Bt25-bn anti-flood, rehabilitation plan

The government has committed to setting up a Bt25-billion fund to rehabilitate flood-affected industrial estates – plus a long-term flood prevention plan – in an effort to reassure local and foreign investors for the long term. 
More than 1,000 factories have been swamped over the past two months by record-breaking floods.
Deputy Prime Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong said after yesterday’s meeting with the Industry Minister, industrial estate operators, the Board of Investment (BoI), and the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand that a committee would draw up preventive measures and needed infrastructure.
Experts would be invited to help design the flood-prevention system, which could take 3-4 years to materialise, and they would work together with industrial estate and business operators and government agencies.
The establishment plan will be put to a Cabinet meeting today for approval, along with other rehabilitation moves, and measures to address the shortage of some goods.
Kittiratt said water would be drained out of flooded estates within 45 days after things stabilised. For the short-term, the government would help clean affected machines. Government units and state agencies would offer their best help, besides financial support.
“The government’s mission is to help the manufacturing sector in flood-hit areas to resume operations as soon as possible,” he said.
Huge financial support has been promised amid criticism over poor water management, which led to the severe flooding of 7 industrial estates in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani. 
Four more estates in the east of Bangkok are also at risk. The moves come amid fears foreign investors may relocate elsewhere, following severe supply chain disruption, particularly automotive and electronics firms.
Nipit Arunvongse na Ayudhya, managing director of Nava Nakorn, operator of Nava Nakorn Industrial Estate, expected it would take no more than 60 days to reopen flooded estates. He expected widespread cooperation in creating a flood-prevention system.
“We cannot do it separately. The industrial estate operators in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani provinces have to make it happen together; maybe zone by zone. To have an effective infrastructure and system to prevent floods in the future, will take 3-4 years to complete,” he said.
Besides long-term infrastructure, each operation would need to devise its own rehabilitation and infrastructure investment plans. Nava Nakorn will finalise damage assessment next week and then the investment budget. This was needed to restore foreign investor confidence, as tax incentives may be insufficient to retain existing investment and attract new ones.
“Other countries in the region are competing to attract foreign investment and some in our estate are expressing an interest in relocation to other countries after the floods.”
HiTech Industrial Estate is expected to resume operations on December 16, based on the water volume and existing drainage capacity, managing director Thavich Taychanavakul said.
Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, chairperson of Bang Kadi Industrial Park, thanked the government for its rehabilitation plan. As chairperson of Toshiba Thailand, which has eight manufacturing plants in the estate, she said that for domestic distribution, Toshiba was considering either importing electrical appliances from manufacturing plants in Indonesia, Vietnam and China, or asking original equipment manufacturers in Thailand to produce appliances for Toshiba.
She favoured use of local firms to supply some of the products, to boost the country’s economy. The floods damaged the firm’s home appliance products, but audio and visual products were enough to distribute for a month. Kobkarn said Toshiba Japan had said in writing it had no plans to leave Thailand, thanks to the country’s economic potential.