Greater Focus on skills enhancement for R&D

The Board of Investment (BoI) has granted full incentives for the promotion of R&D investment instead of labourintensive projects since 2006. It has approved 33 projects with a combined investment of Bt4.282 bil¬lion.

"As far as the BoI is concerned, we provide the maximum incentives to encourage R&D investment in the country. However, our main problem is a shortage of skilled workers," said BoI senior executive investment adviser Hirunya Suchinai.

Thailand is now ranked in the top three for R&D in Southeast Asia, behind Singapore and Malaysia, Hirunya said.

Apart from the automotive and electronics industries, Greater Pharma, a leading Thai medicinemaker, has spent Bt37.6 million on developing allergenic vaccines.

Hirunya said pharmaceutical companies needed to conduct more R&D if they wanted to pass stricter international standards, which would otherwise act as a trade barrier to their exports.

Seventeen STI projects have been submitted for these privileges and the BoI has approved all but one of them, with a combined investment of Bt2.32 billion.

Western Digital, for example, has collaborated with the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) on a harddiskdrive enhancement proj¬ect that requires an investment of more than Bt500 million.

One of the STI goals is to encourage foreign firms to transfer their technology to local academic insti¬tutes or public organisations such as Nectec.