Published on October 18, 2005

The Board of Investment (BoI) yesterday granted investment promotion incentives to 15 large projects worth in total more than Bt40 billion.

It also set up a subcommittee to work out how to make incentives more appealing to foreign investors. The panel will be chaired by Boonklee Plangsiri, chief executive of Shin Corp Plc, which was founded by the family of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It also nominated Bangkok Bank president Chartsiri Sophonpanich as a panel member.

The largest BoI project to receive incentives is Bangchak Petroleum Plc Bt10-billion investment in a cracking unit and cooking-gas plant, according to Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak.

The new plant will have a production capacity of 28,500 barrels of petrol per day and 18,450 tonnes of cooking gas.

Another project is PTT Plc’s Bt9.7-billion gas separation plant. The plant will have a capacity to produce 800,000 tonnes of gas per year.

The BoI also granted incentives to Honda Automobile (Thailand) for its plans to spend more than Bt1.8-billion on cylinder-block and cylinder-head plant.

Other projects include Siam Denso Manufacturing’s Bt932-million investment in a fuel-injection pump plant, Solartron Plc’s investment in a Bt1.38-billion solar cell plant, and PET Plus’ plans for a Bt983-million plastic pellet plant.

National Petrochemical Plc also earned incentive incentives for its plastic-pellet plant investment of Bt4.5 billion. The project, which is slated for completion in 2007 will produce 100,000 tonnes of low-density polyethylene a year.

Post your comment to this story here