The government has made an effort to push 10 specific industries to achieving new goals and has invested more than 90 billion baht in these industries over the past five months.
Minister of Industry Atchaka Sribunruang reported that from January to May this year, 280 projects across the government’s targeted industries filed for investment assistance totaling 91.875 billion baht, which is 40 percent of all investment assistance requests in the Kingdom.
Most of the sums were requested for the automotive and auto parts industries, which saw 30 billion baht worth of requests filed. The processed farm goods industry had the second highest value of investment at more than 22 billion baht. 12 billion baht was given to the telecommunications industry and electronic appliances, and the petrochemical and chemical industry also received 12 billion baht.
The government is optimistic that the industrial sector will be healthy in the third and fourth quarters as private sector consumption is on the rise due to farmers receiving more income from higher priced farm goods. The successful public referendum has also spurred confidence among private sector investors. While the government is hoping for signs of economic recovery, it is unclear what the state of global demand will be.
