Thailand: Tax incentives on the cards to spark Internet data centres

[webfact]

DATA CENTRE
Tax incentives on the cards to spark Internet data centres
Usanee Mongkolporn
The Nation

The government will offer tax incentives to encourage local and foreign partners to set up at least 40 Internet data centres this year.

BANGKOK: -- The move is part of the government's digital economy policy, Djitt Laowattana, an adviser to the state-appointed panel drafting the policy for the government, said yesterday.

The establishment of at least 40 data centres here is expected to require an investment of Bt30 billion.

The government will launch promotional packages via the Board of Investment to woo foreign companies into forming data centre joint ventures with local partners.

The foreign partners can enjoy tax privileges on the condition that they agree to transfer technology to the local partners.

The move is also in line with the new BOI strategy to funnel investment to innovations and ICT in Thailand.

The ad hoc digital economy committee, chaired by Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha will hold its first meeting next week to outline the national digital economy plan.

Djitt said the data warehouse business is one of the key engines of growth for the new digital economy era.

The data storage centres will serve the high demand for new services, including cloud computing, from companies and government agencies.

"Every industry is moving to use IT services, which will drive our country's business value," he said.

TOT and CAT Telecom will shift their existing data centres to primarily serving the Finance and Defence ministries.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Tax-incentives-on-the-cards-to-spark-Internet-data-30255244.html

-- The Nation 2015-03-04

[NeverSure]

"The foreign partners can enjoy tax privileges on the condition that they agree to transfer technology to the local partners."

Good luck with that. Same as their oil deals, I guess.

Good luck with finding enough electricity to run them. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo etc. locate server farms where there is an excess of electricity. They lease that excess, usually for a period of 50 years to assure power. Google recently built a data center right on the Columbia River at The Dalles Dam because the dam is 50 years old and the original leases to utilities were expiring. Google bid on the electricity it needed and won the bid.

"Few spots throw the world’s rapacious hunger for electricity to work more forcefully than the distinct 30-acre plot of scrubland in northern Oregon possessed by Google." LINK

Edited March 4, 2015 by NeverSure

[bkkcanuck8]

Having data centers without the international internet bandwidth ..... great idea.... maybe they should encourage more international bandwidth and create a well connected Thailand before thinking about data centres.... can't have datacenters without being able to connect to them

[phetphet]

I bet there will be an almighty rush to build now.