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Published on November 13, 2007

One project is the expansion of the Honda Motors assembly plant. It wants to increase output by 210,000 units a year and two million parts.

The expansion will cost Bt7.5 billion, according to the BoI.

Rayong Refinery will spend Bt10.6 billion to boost capacity by another 50,000 barrels per day. Rojana Industrial Park has applied for tax privileges to expand its estate in Ayutthaya. This will cost Bt2.5 billion.

"These investment projects show big companies are still confident of investing in Thailand despite political instability and global economic slowdown," he said.

In the first 10 months of the year applications worth a total of Bt498 billion have been submitted to the BoI. That is an increase of 20 per cent on the same period last year. Foreign direct investment makes up for 63.9 per cent of that.

Japanese companies will spend the most with investment of Bt13 billion.

Applications from Europe totalled Bt8.5 billion, up from Bt6.3 billion in the same period last year.

However, net applications from the US dropped to Bt5.8 billion, from Bt9.6 billion last year.

Most foreign applications were for auto-parts, metal, services, infrastructure, biotech and petrochemical industries.

However, the source said most new projects were from companies already

in Thailand. The number of newcomers is low.

Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul

 The Nation