Secretary-General of the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) Duangjai Asawachintachit has urged investors to focus on enhancing productivity and efficiency through automation and human resource training by taking advantage of the key promotion measures offered to them, in order to prepare for the economic recovery expected in 2021.

According to a report from BOI, Ms. Duangjai spoke about the focus at a Webinar titled "Support Measures for Economic Recovery,” which was co-hosted by the Joint Foreign Chamber of Commerce in Thailand (JFCCT) on 5 August 2020.

For 2020, Thailand’s Ministry of Finance anticipates an 8.1% contraction of the GDP, with a progressive improvement from the third quarter, which should lead to a rebound in 2021.

"Looking forward I think we can expect the economy to gradually pick up in the remaining half of this year,” said Mr. Pisit Puapan, Director of the Macroeconomic Policy Bureau of the Ministry of Finance. "For 2021, the Ministry of Finance expects the Thai economy to rebound and show a positive growth rate of 4-5%,” Mr. Pisit said.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 earlier this year, the BOI has been quick to introduce measures to facilitate existing operations, including by relaxing deadlines and offering incentives for productivity enhancement, as well as measures to attract new foreign direct investment in sectors showing strong potential in the post-COVID world.

These steps include additional tax incentives, as well as non-tax incentives, provided by the BOI to sectors that have now become more important under the health crisis, such as projects in medical equipment and food security.

"I think the COVID 19 crisis has reiterated the necessity for us to move forward to more automation and robotics, so we are encouraging companies to invest in automation to become more efficient or have better products at lower costs,” Ms. Duangjai said.

"So, we are now offering tax incentives for companies that would like to invest in new machinery, to replace existing ones, for the purpose of energy conservation or to use lower energy or to reduce the impact on the environment”, Ms. Duangjai added.

Another key area for promotion is in training and development of human resources, again with an emphasis on both new and existing projects.

"We are encouraging by incentivizing companies to spend more on training,” Ms. Duangjai said, adding that if companies spend on manpower development then they can have a higher corporate income tax exemption.