The project was approved by the Board of Investment (BoI) at the end of last month.

The plant will be located at the Navanakorn Industrial Estate in Pathum Thani province. Annual production capacity will be 69.86 million units.

Once fully operational, the company will employ more than 13,000 workers at the facility.

The project is expected to reduce the country's annual import bill for hard-disk drives by about Bt32.31 billion, according to the BoI's website.

Besides the new facility, Fujitsu has already invested Bt28.7 billion in 19 projects in the Kingdom. Most focus on producing electronic parts for various business sectors.

"I have said before, political instability is not a factor that influences foreign companies in their investment decisions. They focus on the country's infrastructure and long-term policies. Now Fujitsu's latest investment has proven my words," said BoI secretary-general Satit Charnjavanakul.

He said the baht's appreciation had not seriously affected overseas companies because most of them usually trade in US dollars.

He added that the BoI expected new investment applications from electronic-parts companies to be worth about Bt80 billion this year. Last year, there were 257 applications from electronics firms applying for incentives for projects worth Bt79 billion.

So far this year, there have been applications for 45 projects from electronic and electronic-parts companies totalling Bt33.7 billion. This compares with Bt2.5 billion in the same period last year.

Fujitsu Group operates a wide range of businesses in Thailand, from personal computers and telecom devices to systems consultancy.The group comprises FDK Tatung (Thailand), Fujitsu (Thailand), Fujitsu General (Thailand), Fujitsu General Appliance (Thailand), Fujitsu General Engineering (Thailand), Fujitsu Systems Business (Thailand), Fujitsu Ten (Thailand) and Shinko Micro Electronics (Thailand).

Chalida  Ekvitthayavechnukul

The Nation