BANGKOK: Thailand’s foreign direct investment (FDI) this year should experience solid improvement with the launch of the government’s 10 industrial clusters and the integration of the Asean Economic Community.
“After the government imposed a series of stimulus packages and new policies targeted at Thailand’s economic recovery amid the fluctuations of the global economy, its efforts have started to improve the the situation,” said CLSA Securities’ country head Prinn Panitchpakdi. Mr Prinn said FDI would turn around by year-end and the momentum would continue through 2017.
Foreign Foreign investors delayed decisions after the 2014 coup, while the movement of capital globally deterred investment last year. In 2015, the Board of Investment approved applications worth 800 billion baht, well below the target of 1.4 trillion but still higher than the 725 billion in 2014, after the government changed the regulations on granting privileges to insist on value-added investment instead of merely large budgets. Japanese investors still rank No.1 in terms of investment value with 30 billion baht, while the Chinese rank second with 20 billion and Singaporeans third with 18 billion.
“In August, we also had the first reshuffle of the government with five new ministers at the major economic ministries. We had another disruption at that point as people wanted to wait and see what the differences would be,” said Mr Prinn.
