Thailand bids to lure global giants
text size

Thailand bids to lure global giants

The Telecommunications Association of Thailand is to submit proposals by next Monday on the strategies and goals the government needs to transform Thailand into a digital hub in Asean.

The proposals would support the country's move towards becoming a digital economy, said secretary-general Atip Asvanund.

They are also intended to attract global companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Alibaba to establish data centres in Thailand.

A study by the World Economic Forum on information and communications technology competitiveness in 2014 showed Thailand was ranked 67th out of 144 countries.

Singapore was in second place and Malaysia ranked 30th, Mr Atip said.

Mr Atip said the proposals would encourage the government to provide tax incentives to promote foreign investment as well as ease regulations to attract global internet companies to invest in Thailand.

"We have had informal talks with Facebook's executives discussing the possibility of setting up a data centre here," he said.

Facebook will open a representative office in Thailand on Sept 17.

To attract global players, Mr Atip said the government must promote the deployment of cloud computing. Improving internet speed is also essential to attract investors.

According to Zocialinc.com, a local analytics website, Thailand's 35 million Facebook users rank ninth globally.

Teerarat Pantarasutra, president of Symphony Communication Plc, said Thailand's social media users rank third globally, while social media use accounts for 80% of internet traffic in the country.

"If Thailand could attract those global internet players to establish a presence here, it could significantly reduce international bandwidth costs," he said, adding that Google and Facebook have data centres in Singapore and Malaysia.

Mr Teerarat also urged the government to speed up the implementation of the national broadband project by pooling all telecom network resources and sharing network capacity.

Anan Kaewruamwong, managing director of CS Loxinfo, said broadband connectivity would be a crucial factor for social and economic development.

Do you like the content of this article?
COMMENT