Suriya reassures Japanese investors
The Industry Ministry has begun a mission to bolster ties with Japanese businesses given the uncertainties surrounding Thai politics.
Worries about the coalition government’s razor-thin majority are mounting with the Palang Pracharath Partyled government at risk of being forced to step down if it loses the upcoming vote on its budget bill.
However, Industry Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit believes these issues should not affect the foreign investment needed from tech companies to support the Thailand 4.0 scheme.
“Japanese investors are not worried about Thai political stability,” he said during his trip to meet business executives and authorities in Tokyo and Toyama in late September.
“They know our real situation. They have [reliable] information because they don’t simply read sensational news from social media.”
Japan, or “old friend”, as Mr Suriya called it for its long-standing record of large-scale investment in Thailand, is among the key nations his ministry wants to cement ties with.
“R&D experience from Japan can help the government meet its goal of directing the country toward the fourth industrial revolution,” he said.
The recent meeting in Japan was aimed at assuring Japanese businessmen of the mutual benefits the two countries will enjoy through stronger investment ties.
During the trip, Mr Suriya and Uchiyamada Takeshi, chairman of Toyota Motors and the Japan-Thailand Economic Cooperation Society, signed a memorandum of understanding.
“We have agreed to further develop automation and robotics in Thailand,” Mr Suriya said, adding these two fields are crucial to the Thailand 4.0 blueprint.
Robotics is one of 10 targeted industries in the government’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) project, which is a new high-tech industrial hub covering 30,000 rai of land in three coastal provinces of Chon Buri, Rayong and Chachoengsao.
Mr Suriya said the MoU will be a start for setting up a “consortium” to support robotics and automation development.
Also, the minister said, Thailand wants to increase the number of system integrators specialising in computing operations.
During the trip, Mr Suriya also led an entourage to meet high-ranking Japanese officials, including Sugawara Isshu, who is in charge of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), to discuss joint business opportunities.
The METI promised to take Japanese investors to Thailand to see how they can develop their businesses in the EEC, he said.
“Many EEC projects will be at the heart of industrial development under Thailand 4.0,” Mr Sugawara commented.
Mr Suriya said he had strengthened investment links with Japan’s large agencies and corporations, including the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation, which is helping Thailand with rubbish recycling technology, Mitsubishi Motors, which is preparing to produce plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in Thailand over the next two years, and Mitsubishi Electrics, which is planning to open a new smart technology business line.
‘‘ Thailand will always support foreign investment. SURIYA JUNGRUNGREANGKIT INDUSTRY MINISTER
The minister also sought cooperation with small and medium-sized enterprises in Toyama, located northwest of Tokyo, in a move to encourage Japanese SMEs to expand their businesses to Thailand.
“They are prospective investors too because almost all large companies in Japan have already invested in Thailand,” according to Mr Suriya.
Toyama’s businessmen are interested in doing businesses in Thailand as they have established 65 firms here over the past three years, he added.
The Industry Ministry hopes to increase that number to 100 by 2021.
“Officials will give new investors incentives which will be tailor-made for their businesses.
“I want all Japanese businessmen to see Thailand as their second home,” the minister said.
“Thailand will always support foreign investment,” he stressed. “And that will never change no matter how many political changes occur.