Thailand woos Indian investors; opens overseas office in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Thailand Board of Investment (BOI), the government organisation responsible for promoting overseas investment into Thailand, opened its overseas office in Mumbai today to promote investment opportunities among Indian investors.

"The Thailand Board of Investment today opened its Mumbai office in a bid to strengthen investment and trade ties between Thailand and India," Thailand Industry Minister Prasert Boonchaisuk said at a FICCI organised a 'Thailand-India Investment Cooperation Seminar' here.

BOI investment promotion services in Mumbai will not only convince investors to invest in Thailand, but also encourage potential Thai investors to do business in India. India has various industries that match Thailand's investment promotion goals such as auto parts, software, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Several Indian corporates like Tata Motors, Aditya Birla Chemicals, Apollo Tyres, NTS Steel, Polyplex, Indorama Holdings, Bharat Hotels have presence in Thailand.

At present, Thailand and India are in the process of negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) covering trade in goods, which would further boost stronger bilateral economic ties. It is projected that the implementation of the proposed FTA between India and Thailand would help increase the bilateral trade to $ 16 billion by 2015.

India and Thailand have already implemented a preferential trade pact, officially dubbed as early harvest scheme, under which duties have been eliminated or drastically reduced on about 80 products.

Currently, both the sides are intensely engaged in widening the base of the pact by reducing duties on over 90 per cent of the products traded between them.

Bilateral trade has grown significantly and has multiplied five times since 2000 to reach $ 8.83 billion in 2011-12. This represents nearly 27 per cent increase from trade in 2010. While in the 2012-2013 (April to December) has reached $ 6.6 billion.

The major Thai items of exports to India include machinery & machinery appliances; organic chemicals; electrical machinery and parts; rubbers; plastics; auto parts/accessories; fabrics; refrigerator compressors.

Thai imports from India mainly comprise precious & semi-precious stones; machinery & machinery appliances; iron and steel; medicinal & pharmaceutical products.