Thailand further upgrades auto industry

BANGKOK, February 1 (TNA) - The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), through its automotive cluster, has joined forces with the Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology (TNI) to further upgrade the country's automobile plants to the advance automotion version 4.0. Representatives of the FTI's automotive cluster and TNI signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Bangkok on Monday for their cooperation on automobile parts research, development and design. Thaworn Chalasthian, head of the FTI's automotive cluster, told journalists that the cooperation will help strengthen Thailand's automobile industry, as the academic partnership will bring automation to the country's auto parts production, resulting in the products meeting market demand. Thaworn said both parties will also jointly formulate curricula for undergraduates and graduate students at TNI, pointing out that Thailand's automobile and auto parts industry needs about 12,000 workers yearly, 88 per cent of them graduate with high vocational certificates but only 15 per cent of them are now really qualified for their jobs at upgraded plants. Last year, Thaworn noted, Thailand exported automobile parts, worth 16.54 billion US dollars, or about 590 billion baht, with the value likely to grow by 5-6 per cent this year and major export markets for Thai auto parts including Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, the United States and the Middle East. Thaworn acknowledged that Thailand eyes to become a world auto part production base in the future because 10-20 per cent of world-class auto part manufacturers have already invested in Thailand. (TNA)