BANGKOK, Aug 25 — Siam Kubota Corporation Co Ltd (Siam Kubota), an agricultural tractor and heavy equipment manufacturer, plans to build its second largest agricultural machine parts distribution centre, pushing Thailand to become such a hub for the Asia-Pacific region.
A media visiting day was held by Siam Kubota earlier today, at the corporation’s 32-rai site, which will house the Bt 500 million centre, the region’s second largest after its centre in Japan, to distribute agricultural parts in Asia-Pacific.
Besides, the company sees Thailand as having the potential to become the region’s distribution hub for agricultural parts, prompting it to push forward to create the hub in Thailand to cater to the increasing demands for agricultural parts domestically, as well as from ASEAN, India, Australia and Africa.
Siam Kubota President Hiroshi Kawakami said although the company has seen a decline in profit by 10 per cent during the first half of the year, he believes that after the new government come into position with its new policy to stimulate the Thai economy, Siam Kubota should see a future gain of at least 30 per cent.
Meanwhile, Siam Kubota Vice President, Opas Thanwarashorn said he believes that by next year, the Thai market would grow continuously, causing sugar cane and cassava farmers to need more agricultural machinery, due to outstanding produce prices.
He predicted that although the price of rice could still face difficulty in the coming year, better assistance and maintaining production costs within the level of Bt4,000 per rai, and an income of Bt7,000-8,000 per rai for rice farmers would also increase the demand for machinery.
