BOI green lights new mega-investment plans

The Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI) has approved six new domestic projects proposed by foreign investors, with a combined value of nearly a trillion baht.

BOI Secretary General Narit Therdsteerasukdi told the media that the new projects were endorsed this week, at a BOI board meeting chaired by Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas.

He said that TikTok System (Thailand) Co., Ltd. tops the list, followed by three data center projects, two by the United Arab Emirates and the other by the United States.

He noted that TikTok System’s new project to expand server and data hosting systems, to be separately located in Bangkok, Samut Prakan and Chachoengsao provinces, will raise Thailand’s profile as a major strategic digital data storage and processing hub in Southeast Asia.

The China-based firm’s affiliated digital literacy and e-commerce training programs will also create more business opportunities for local entrepreneurs, while enhancing capacities of digital personnel in the country.

The rest of the newly-approved projects include the production of recycled plastic pellets by US giant Procter & Gamble (P&G) in the eastern region, along with the generation of wind power and production of potassium chloride in the northeast.

According to the BOI chief, the new investments in the local digital and high technology sectors are evidence of foreign investors’ confidence in Thailand’s potential, while also creating high-value jobs, national income and technological transfers, paving the way for the domestic economy to become a fully-fledged Bio-Circular-Green Economy (BCG) in the future.

The BOI board has also endorsed nine selected foreign investment projects, with an overall value of over 52 billion baht, to be added to the second lot of the Thailand FastPass system, in which considerations and approvals by relevant agencies will be accelerated.