Foreign investors buying land in Thailand ahead of AEC

BANGKOK, June 10 (TNA) - The Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI) says that a large number of foreign investors, especially those from China, have actively bought plots of land in the country to prepare for their manufacturing and business expansion in Thailand ahead of the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. Ratanawimon Naree Sukreekhet, Director of BOI’s Regional Investment and Economic Center 3, told journalists on Monday that most of the land purchases by foreign investors have been reported in Thailand's Upper Northeast. Ratanawimon revealed that Chinese investors are negotiating to buy a land plot of about 2,000 rai (3.2 square kilometres) in Khon Kaen Province in the Thai Northeast to develop electronic part plants and green industries. According to the BOI chief, a large number of Japanese investors are seeking information on industrial estates in the Thai Northeast to develop their auto and electronic part manufacturing, many of them are small and medium enterprises (SMES) who plan to move their production to Thailand and large-scaled industrialists who want to expand their businesses form the Thai East, where a small amount of land remains available for business expansion. The BOI chief acknowledged that land purchase by local and foreign buyers have raised land prices in the Thai Northeast, where the buyers view to be safe from flooding and to be a convenient location for product distribution to neighbouring Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam after the formation of the AEC. (TNA)