Foreign investment soars in nine months of 2021
Thailand has continued attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first nine months of this year, with an increased number of investment project applications, Thailand’s Board of Investment (BoI) said.
The total value of FDI applications received by the BoI from January to September rose 220 per cent compared to the same period last year, to a total value of Bt372.06 billion from 587 projects, the latest data from the BoI shows.
“Top three countries that have most investment value are Japan (Bt67.8 billion), the United States (Bt26.9 billion) and Singapore (Bt26.8) billion,” said Duangjai Asawachintachit, BoI secretary-general.
“In the first nine months of 2021, BoI have received applications from 1,273 projects with total investment value of Bt520.6 billion, increasing 23 per cent and 140 per cent year on year respectively,” she said. “This number is also higher than total investment value of the whole 2020 at Bt432 billion, and higher than the average investment value before Covid-19 situation (2015-2019) at Bt483.6 billion.”
Duangjai further added that the applications for investments in the targeted industries, led by electronics and electrical sector, medical equipment sector and petrochemical and chemical sector, represented Bt269.7 billion or 52 per cent of the total.
Of the total investment project applications, 134 projects focus on improving manufacturing efficiency and capacity, with total investment value of Bt14.8 billion. “One of these projects are Western Digital’s adaptation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) at scale in its facility,” she said. “The project has resulted in the World Economic Forum on September 27 welcomed the facility from Thailand to prestigious Global Lighthouse Network for the first time. This achievement has proven that Thailand has a strong potential as an investment destination that will drive businesses to full scale industrial revolution.”
