Gas Pipe, Eco-cars Given Green Light By Boi

Gas pipe, eco-cars given green light

BANGKOK: -- Eight industrial projects involving combined investment of Bt63.67 billion will receive approval for Board of Investment (BoI) tax incentives today.

They include PTT's gas-pipeline project and three eco-car projects.

PTT plans to spend Bt41.566 billion to extend its onshore natural-gas pipeline for 300 kilometres from Rayong to Saraburi. The finished pipeline will deliver 620,000 million cubic feet of natural gas per year to power stations and industrial facilities en route.

The eco-car projects receiving approval are those of Mitsubishi Motors (Thailand), Toyota Motors Thailand and India's Tata Motor. They will join Honda, Suzuki Motor and Siam Nissan Automobile, whose eco-car projects have already received BoI approval.

Mitsubishi's project will cost Bt4.711 billion and have a production capacity of 107,000 units per year. It will export 88 per cent of these to Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan.

Toyota will invest Bt4.462 billion for an eco-car plant with an annual capacity of 100,000 units. It will sell the cars in the domestic and export markets in equal numbers when the plant begins operations in 2012.

Tata Motor expects to spend Bt7.317 billion on a plant to produce 100,000 premium energy-saving cars a year. Fifty-two per cent of them will be exported to Asean and other Asia-Pacific countries, as well as South Africa. It expects to start production in 2010.

The remaining four projects getting the green light today belong to Global Biodiesel, Prachinburi Glass Industry, Star Petroleum Refining and One-Two-Go Airlines.

Meanwhile, the Thailand Automotive Institute, the Industry Ministry and Auto Alliance (Thailand) are joining forces to establish an auto-industry training centre at the Hemaraj Industrial Estate on the Eastern Seaboard. It will be aimed at producing more skilled workers to serve future growth in the automobile and auto-parts industries.

The centre will cost about Bt900 million. Auto Alliance plans to invest Bt600 million and the Industry Ministry Bt290 million.

"In the beginning, we plan to produce 3,000 new skilled workers and improve the skills of existing workers in 200 local parts-manufacturing plants," said Thai Automotive Institute director Wallop Tiasiri.

"Other industrial estates, such as Amata and the Industrial Estates Authority of Thailand, have agreed to set up more such centres in their area soon."

-- The Nation 2008-04-01