Thailand's first intraocular lenses plant to be set up by 2018

BANGKOK, August 22 (TNA) - Thailand's expanding investment on medical projects, including the country's first-ever manufacturing plant of intraocular lenses set to be launched over the next two years, have paved the way for the Kingdom to become a medical hub in the region in the future in line with the Thai government's policy. Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI) Secretary-General Hirunya Suchinai told journalists of the positive prospect on Monday, acknowledging new investment projects on the production of medical products that had applied for BOI's approvals of promotional privileges during the first seven months of this year had stood over 5.1 billion baht in their total value, a surge of 252 per cent year-on-year. Hirunya attributed the surge in the proposed projects in the domestic medical industry mainly to the Thai government's policy on specially promoting 10 targeted industrial clusters, particularly the medical industrial one, aimed to cushion them to become key mechanisms to concretely drive forward the national economy in the future. According to the BOI chief, measures to promote the targeted industrial clusters include tax incentives and more investment facilitations through revised rules and regulations. The BOI chief pointed out that the promotional measures would not only draw more targeted investment projects into Thailand, but bring about technological transfers beneficial to the further development of the domestic production of the targeted products in the future. The BOI chief cited some new investment projects that are considered interesting and have already approved by her agency as examples, namely an intraocular lenses manufacturing plant, the first of its kind in Thailand, with its initial production capacity of 50,000 units annually and set to be first supplied on the domestic market for cataract and glaucoma patients in early 2018, and a production plant of gene probe solution used for testing and screening patients of the coronary artery disease with a quick result and timely treatment, also the first of its kind in the country. Besides, US-based Baxter Manufacturing Thailand will open a new production plant of peritoneal dialysis (PD) solution, its second plant, at the Amata City Industrial Park in Rayong Province in the Thai East late this month. Its parent company, Baxter International Inc. in Illinois, which is a large manufacturer of medicines and medical products, has reportedly expanded its investment into Thailand since 1994 with its accumulated investment fund in the country exceeding 6 billion baht so far and its annual export revenues of about 1.5 billion baht on average. (TNA)