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Latest Updates Regarding BOI and Thailand 4.0

Transcript of the above video:

In this video today we are going to be doing another update with respect to BOI, or the Board of Investment here in the Kingdom specifically in the context of the somewhat recently touted Thailand 4.0 Initiative. And what we're talking about here is the powers that be in Thailand have deemed it's pretty well time for Thailand’s economic situation, or I should say its economy, to sort of upgrade, into more innovative, more intellectual property based initiatives and sort of basically pull itself up by the bootstraps away from some of the more mundane areas of economic development. 

In a recent article from the Bangkok Post published 18 December, 2017, title being “BOI Buzzes in pursuit of Thailand 4.0.” Quoting directly, “the Government's Thailand 4.0 scheme meant to usher in the country into more value added innovative and creative sectors made the Board of Investment the BOI, one of the busiest state agencies as it reworks its processes and structures to promote technological changes. One of the novelties, is the establishment of five new BOI divisions, bio and medical Industries, advanced manufacturing, basic and support Industries, high-value services and creative and digital Industries. These divisions are expected to handle the new generation of S curve Industries and those slated for the much touted Eastern Economic Corridor.” For more information on the so called “Eastern Economic Corridor” there’s another video on this channel that specifically goes into detail on what the EEC is, what it's sort of designed to do, the initiative itself. To quote further from here, “the Government’s  ten targeted industries are: next-generation cars, smart electronics, affluent medical and wellness tourism, agriculture and biotechnology, food, robotics for industry, logistics and aviation, biofuels and bio-chemicals, digital and medical devices”. So what to take away from this video? To me it's pretty clear that especially in certain sectors, authorities here in the Kingdom are quite interested in encouraging economic development, encouraging foreign direct investment, encouraging foreigners coming to the Kingdom, to help how shall we say, to help influence this for the more positive, to basically help cultivate these new industries here in the Kingdom. As it has been noted in previous videos on this channel, initiatives such as the so-called “smart visa" and some other initiatives such on like work permit issuance and things of this nature, would seem to be part and parcel with some of the relaxations and modernizations associated with trying to encourage more foreign investment at the very least, but perhaps even more foreign expertise. This is just sort of a personal editorial. One thing I've always found is rather interesting about Thailand and something they should probably be rather proud of from an economic standpoint, is the willingness to allow foreign, I guess I should say foreign expertise to come into the country and cultivate that expertise and basically, basically fully take advantage of a technological and intellectual exchange with foreign nations, outside powers, foreign companies, foreign individuals. Thailand is extremely good at this, they are very good at sort of adapting foreign notions to sort of the Thai experience and they are very good at adapting foreign technologies rather quickly and integrate those into their economy with a rather substantial amount of efficiency and speed. So just something to take away from this, for those who are interested in coming to Thailand to do business. If you're in an industry that is similar to that similar to that quoted in this article, it's probably a good idea to go ahead and look into Thailand. Another thing to think of is, unlike certain other jurisdictions in the Southeast Asia region, Thailand does have the infrastructure on top of everything else to be able to support these sectors and these industries. I'm not going to really point to any other country specifically but I would say Thailand’s infrastructure can go toe-to-toe with most, if not all of the infrastructure in the region and perhaps maybe even at least be on par with certain jurisdictions throughout Asia, maybe up into Northeast Asia frankly, although perhaps not quite as sophisticated and perhaps not quite as long running in terms of operation, Thailand's infrastructure does not lack complexity, the understanding of how the industry works in the Kingdom has grown vastly especially in the past 30 years.  I'm not saying this from experience because I haven't been here that long, but that being said, it has changed rather significantly. It stands to reason and it seems logical to infer that this is going to continue into the future and I think this Thailand 4.0 initiative and more importantly the sort of tactical undertakings that the BOI has been endeavoring towards with respect to sort of implementing this Thailand 4.0 initiative, are rather interesting. I think that they're not insignificant and for those who are interested in investing in the Kingdom, I think it might not be a bad time to look at it because this may be sort of a perfect confluence of events for certain types of economic activity here in the Kingdom.