Chinese investments surpass Japanese investments in Thailand

[webfact]

Chinese investments surpass Japanese investments in Thailand



BANGKOK: -- Chinese investments in Thailand for the past eight months have surpassed Japanese Investments for the first time in history after the Board of Investment adjusted its foreign direct investment promotional incentives.

Altogether 332 projects worth 50,267 million baht applied for promotional privileges during the first eight months of this year. Of these, 51 projects worth 13,100 million baht came from Singaporean investors; 37 projects worth 10,000 million baht came from Chinese investors and 92 projects worth 9,900 million baht came from Japanese investors.

BoI secretary-general Mrs Hirunya Sujinai explained Chinese investments were higher than Japanese investments for the first time because several Singaporean projects were Chinese-funded.

Of the total investments during the first eight months, 39.5 percent were investments on alternative energy development, especially solar energy.

Mrs Hirunya said the BoI would try to persuade Japanese investors to invest more in Thailand especially Japanese SMEs which have high capability and technology which meet the BoI’s demand.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/chinese-investments-surpass-japanese-investments-in-thailand


-- Thai PBS 2015-10-20

[JohnnyJazz]

The question is should Thailand becomes a SEZ (Special Economic Zone) like Shenzhen or a SAR (Special Administrative Region) like Hong Kong. In my opinion a SAR has too much political autonomy and that can spell trouble (think of Occupy Central). Personally I would prefer a SEZ with a strong grip from the central government. It shouldn't be too difficult anyway the Han-ification has already started long ago.

[clockman]

Well Bangkok has the largest Chinese population. Of any city in the world, outside China. 4 million! So Thailand is a colony?

[smutcakes]

The question is should Thailand becomes a SEZ (Special Economic Zone) like Shenzhen or a SAR (Special Administrative Region) like Hong Kong. In my opinion a SAR has too much political autonomy and that can spell trouble (think of Occupy Central). Personally I would prefer a SEZ with a strong grip from the central government. It shouldn't be too difficult anyway the Han-ification has already started long ago.

Whilst the SEZ's a potentially a good idea, there are also many questions relating to them and how effective they will be, just a couple would be:

1) Do businesses want to locate there?

2) Can they get the required workforce there? (especially management to stay there, and how much that would cost)

3) Many of the SEZ's are 15 hour drives away from the nearest sea ports

4) SEZ's take a long time to develop- i think the ones in Lao and Cambodia are really only starting to get traction now and they are already about 5-6 years old.

5) There are many incentives already in place in Rayong, Chonburi etc- are the additional incentives enough to draw existing manufacturers away?

6) Are the various countries going to start competing aggressively against each other?

7) The BOI recently changed so its no longer based on Zoning and decentralizing from BKK which gains the most privileges. Its now done on type of industry, so companies can still get all benefits without decentralizing that much.

These are just a couple.

[puukao]

so what have we learned??? money talks, BS walks.....

if you are not in Thailand yet, take your company public, make a few hundred million, and bring it to Thailand.....

if you are wondering if you can live on 500 baht a day.....well, get used to standing behind the chinese tourists....

because with money comes power!!!

internet billionaire!!!! make me an internet trillionaire!!!!

[Thian]

In Indonesia the Chinese controlled all the business in some city's, leaving nothing left for the locals. Untill 20 years ago when they had huge riots and burned down all those company's.

Chinese are better then Thai in building businesses, but when they have the monopoly the prices will double.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_Chinese_Indonesians

Edited October 20, 2015 by Thian

[Srikcir]

Large Chinese investments in a country may not be for the best:

“One major problem is that Chinese firms tend to rely heavily on interpersonal relationships to get things done—known in Chinese as guanxi, which in practice often means getting things done via bribery and gift-giving.”

“They stick to the usual Chinese methods, relying on relationships and personalities,…Too much focus on their own aims will create major problems for later cooperation.”

http://qz.com/265577/why-almost-a-third-of-overseas-chinese-investments-fail/

“China is apparently more concerned with the political stability of the government than with the environment of rule of law in the domestic economy. In light of these different tendencies of ODI and FDI, Chinese investment tends to be a large share of total investment in countries with poor rule of law.”

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/08/18-chinese-investment-africa-chen-dollar-tang

Let the buyer beware.

[losgrad]

So, this is reported data comparing "new investments." Anyone have data about current/existing investments between these countries?

The government should be careful to not forget about those existing businesses providing employment, infrastructure, etc...

[elgordo38]

Conquer from the inside out. They must be gobbling up all the new condo's. Bring your own water.