Investment/BoI

Chatrudee Theparat

The Board of Investment (BoI) approved 66.9 billion baht (about US$ 2 billion) worth of new investments for businesses.

They include electronics manufacturing and data centers, the re-conduction of several investment promotion packages, and relief measures for promoted companies affected by recent floods in the northern and northeast regions.

“The continuous flow of new foreign investment in data centers and the electronic supply chain reinforce’s Thailand’s status as a regional tech hub,” Narit Therdsteerasukdi, secretary general of the BoI, said after the board meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira.

Project approvals

The board approved the following projects:

- Quartz Computing Co, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, received approval for a 32.8 billion baht investment to establish a hyperscale data center to be located in Chonburi province. The project was first announced on 30 September 2024 during the visit to Thailand by a senior Google executive.

The company plans to build the first phase of a data centre and cloud region worth one billion US dollars in Chon Buri province and a schedule operating in early 2027. It will be the fifth data center of Google in Asia.

- Digitalland Services (Thailand) Co, a subsidiary of GDS IDC Services PTE, received approval for a 28 billion baht investment to establish a hyperscale data center in Chonburi province.

Currently, applications to the BoI data centre and cloud service are 47 projects worth 173 billion baht.

- Cheng Yi Technology (Thailand) Co received approval for a 6.15 billion baht project to produce prepreg and copper clad laminate (CCL), important components used in the production of printed circuit boards (PCB). The factory will be located in TFD Industrial Estate 2, Chachoengsao province.

Narit Therdsteerasukdi

Extension to end-2025 of 4 incentive packages

The board approved the extension by one year to end-2025 of four packages of investment promotion measures that initially required applications for promotion to be submitted by end-2024, namely 1) retention & expansion program; 2) relocation program 3) investment stimulation measure for economic recovery and 4) investment promotion measure to upgrade automotive industry.

Applications filed between January 2023 and September 2024 under these four incentive packages represented a combined investment value of more than 650 billion baht.

Some of the measures, all placed under the 5-year investment promotion strategy (2023-2027), were also adjusted to better reflect the current investment situation.

As part of the revisions, the minimum actual investment required to apply for benefits under the Investment Stimulation Measure for Economic Recovery has been increased from the original 1 billion baht to not less than 2 billion baht.

Flood relief measures

The board also approved relief measures to help promote companies that have been affected by the recent floods in Thailand. According to the BoI’s initial survey of businesses damaged by the floods in the northern and the northeast regions, at least 6 promoted companies in the agricultural & food and light industries sectors were affected.

In order to alleviate the impact and help restore normal operations as soon as possible, the companies will be granted an import duty exemption on machinery they would need to replace equipment damaged by the floods, and a deduction of machinery and raw materials that were damaged or lost.