New BoI unit to back firms spreading wings overseas
THE Board of Investment (BoI) will have more of a role to play in supporting Thai companies wishing to venture abroad, Deputy Prime Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula said yesterday. He also hinted at which tax regulations could be changed in order to fac
The BoI will be given more responsibility in helping Thai companies – especially small and medium-sized enterprises – seeking to expand their business overseas, since there has been a clear lack of government support in this area until now, he said .
“In the past, the expansion of production bases into other countries has successfully been undertaken by the skill of the private sector alone, and without any support whatsoever from the government, and I can fully say so because I now belong in both the private and public sectors,” he added.
The deputy PM said a new agency was being created within the BoI to specialise in the support of the expansion of Thai businesses that wished to set up abroad, or already had ventures outside the country.
Thai companies have the know-how in consumer products, and the Kingdom has the largest amount of private capital and the biggest army of operators when compared to other Asean countries, which means that the country is ready to go abroad, he stressed.
“We can do it. Don’t look down on our own companies and our own people … We should aim to become a trading nation within the region, similar to what Japan is to the world,” he said, adding, “We have the opportunity to do so, but what we must do is have the right set-up.” In order to be a trading nation within the region, the country has to encourage large foreign companies to open trading headquarters in Thailand, something which he said was virtually non-existent at the moment due to tax and non-tax barriers.
The tax regulation regarding company income, which dictates that a foreign business has to pay tax if it wants to import products into Thailand before exporting them to a third party country, will be re-examined, as neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore have already done away with such levies due to their discouragement of companies wishing to establish trading HQs, he said.
Another measure which needs to be looked at is the one which taxes foreign companies in Thailand that receive profits from subsidiaries in another country, he added.
