Thailand opens third investment-luring office in China

Aug 20, 2009, 5:04 GMT

   Bangkok - Thailand has opened a third investment office in China, based in the southern city of Guangzhou, to try to lure more Chinese investment, the Board of Investment said Thursday.

   'Its strategic location as a port on the Pearl River, navigable to the South China Sea and accessible from Hong Kong and Macau, makes Guangzhou an important gateway to southern China,' said Atchaka Sibunruang Brimble, the board's secretary general.

   The board, a government office whose mission it is to attract investments to Thailand and promote Thai investments abroad, has already set up offices in Shanghai and Beijing.

   China is far behind Japan, the European Union and United States as an investor nation in Thailand, but the pace of investments has increased in recent years.

   According to board figures, the total value of net applications for investments from China from January to June was 507 million baht (14.91 million dollars), up 181 per cent from the same period in 2008.

   Investments between China and South-East Asia were expected to increase 40 to 60 per cent over the next two years, following the signing of an ASEAN-China Investment Agreement in Bangkok this month.

   China is currently ranked the eighth-largest investor in South-East Asia with 5.6 billion dollars in cumulative investments in the region as of 2008.

   Investments in China from the 10 members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) amounted to 6.1 billion as of last year.

   The investment agreement provides Chinese and ASEAN investors guarantees not necessarily proffered to other countries, such as guaranteed compensation for investors in the case of nationalization or riots.

   ASEAN has also agreed to set up a dispute-settlement body soon to resolve legal problems that might arise between investors and the respective states.

   ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.