Bangkok (VNA) – Many foreign investors are looking to move their production base to Thailand, according to Kriangkrai Thianukul, vice president of the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI).

The main reason for their interest in Thailand is the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused manufacturing facilities in China to shut down and affected the supply chain of the industrial sector, he said.

Many companies are planning to move out of China to reduce future risk and are eyeing countries in Southeast Asia, he added.

He further noted that Thailand is among the top choices as the country has several seaports to facilitate logistics and the geographical location is at the centre of the region.

Thailand also has basic infrastructure for high-tech industries as well as cheap labour, he said. The fact that Thailand has handled the pandemic well also proves its ability in dealing with a crisis and helps strengthen investors’ confidence, he explained.

As Asian supply chains reshuffle in the wake of the pandemic, the Thai government is focusing its efforts to attract foreign investors in the medical devices sector, a promising industry in light of the health crisis.

Thailand’s Board of Investment (BoI) aims to set up joint ventures or convince foreign firms to move their manufacturing base for medical devices to the country.

Sonklin Ploymee, executive director of industrial linkage development at BoI, said the group is focusing on developing the country's subcontracting sector to serve new targeted industries in the future.

Initially, the BoI will focus on the aerospace, medical devices, electric vehicle, smart electronics and the railway system sectors, she said.

The division has successfully conducted several programmes to assist foreign assemblers and manufacturers with sourcing high-quality parts and components from Thai small and medium-sized enterprises.

The BoI plans to hold Subcon Thailand, ASEAN's largest international industrial subcontracting event, between September 23 – 26 in Bangkok to facilitate business matching and create a targeted 12 billion THB (nearly 400 million USD) in value from 8,000 business matches./.
VNA