Swedes keen on investment, partnership
Swedish investors are being urged to invest in special economic zones and superclusters and use Thailand as a manufacturing hub to tap Asean and beyond.
Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn, who spoke yesterday with Staffan Herrstrom, the Swedish ambassador to Thailand, said she had encouraged Swedish investors to invest more in Thailand and use the country as a base for distributing goods and services in Asean and Asia.
She cited Thailand’s location at the centre of Asean and its borders with many countries.
“The government is now beefing up special economic zones and supercluster development, and we’re looking forward to foreign investment, including that from Sweden,” Mrs Apiradi said.
Superclusters are designated investment centres for high-tech industries. The clusters will cover six industrial sectors: automotive; food processing; ecofriendly chemicals and petrochemicals; medical services; digital; and electronics, electrical appliances and telecommunications equipment.
Last September, the cabinet approved placing the superclusters in nine provinces.
The food processing, medical services and digital clusters will be located in Chiang Mai and Phuket, while the other three will be located in seven other provinces.
Industries in superclusters will be entitled to a full corporate income tax exemption for eight years and a 50% reduction for five years thereafter.
According to Mrs Apiradi, Sweden also pledged to promote more cooperation and partnership in innovation, design, and research and development.
“At the meeting, the Swedes affirmed that they would continue doing business and trading with Thailand, particularly for rice, as Sweden is now Thailand’s largest rice importer in Europe,” she said.
“The ambassador also said that Swedish investors are still keen to invest more in Thailand.”
Sweden is the 47th-largest trading partner of Thailand and ranks ninth among the 28-member European Union.
In 2015, two-way trade between Thailand and Sweden totalled US$1.26 billion, with Thai exports worth $475 million.
Key shipments included electrical appliances, TV sets, radio transceivers, automotive and auto parts, air conditioners, washing machines and apparel.
Meanwhile, Thailand imported mainly machinery, paper, automotive equipment, steel, pharmaceuticals, metals and chemicals.
Direct investment by Sweden that was approved by the Board of Investment (BoI) totalled 5.09 billion baht over the past five years.
In 2015, Swedish investment worth 113 million baht was approved by the BoI, down from 356 million a year earlier.
Sweden was Thailand’s 12th-largest investor from the EU, mainly in technology such as electrical appliances and industrial machinery.