BoI privilege applications surpass target for this year

“Most of the projects are in the power, energy, automobile and electronic-component industries,” Industry Minister Wannarat Charnnukul said yesterday. “These high numbers reflect the confidence of Thai and foreign investors to keep investing in Thailand despite the severe flooding.”
Despite the encouraging trend, the BoI does not dare commit to a higher projects forecast for next year, as some negative factors such as the economic slump in the euro zone would weigh on the investment outlook in Thailand.
The project numbers from January to November were 20 per cent higher than in the same period last year, and investment value was 77 per cent higher. About Bt354 billion or almost half of the investment was foreign direct investment.
Last month alone saw applications for 177 projects worth Bt135.6 billion.
Of the 1,630 projects, 496 were from Japanese investors. That was 54 per cent above the same period of last year, while the investment value from Japan was Bt164 billion, up 90 per cent.
Mainland China had 28 projects worth Bt26 billion, Singapore had 48 projects worth Bt22.88 billion and Hong Kong had 29 projects worth Bt12.55 billion.
Atchaka Sibunruang, secretary-general of the BoI, said the surprising number of applications in November was the result of the low number in October, when the serious flooding unnerved both local and foreign investors. Applications this month would not be as much.
Services and utilities made up the largest share with 376 projects worth Bt246.9 billion. The big projects in this category were gas-fired power plants, biomass power plants, natural-gas pipelines and aviation projects.
The metal, machine and automobile industries had 424 projects worth Bt118.8 billion, while the electronics and electrical-appliance industries had 229 projects worth Bt75.6 billion.