Thailand to receive $5 billion investment from Google, Microsoft, others

By Samuel Ogunsona

The new Prime Minister (PM) of Thailand, Srettha Thavisin, has said the Asian country is expected to receive investment of at least five billion dollars ($5B) from Tesla, Google and Microsoft.

Srettha who said this while speaking to Journalists in Bangkok on Sunday did not specify either the $5 billion is a combine investment or made individually by the Tech companies even though they are yet to respond to his comment.

He said “Tesla would be looking into an EV manufacturing facility, Microsoft and Google are looking at data centers”

Srettha held talks with the companies executives at the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York which started on September 18 and expected to end 26th of September.

The discussion between Srettha and Tesla Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Elon Musk, last week revealed his plans about innovation on electric vehicle sector.

However, the Southeast Asia country has been offering range of intensives to tech companies for new digital techniques which includes EV and battery makers, tax cuts to local EV buyers, to remain a regional auto centre.

Former Thailand Board of Investment Secretary-General, Duangjai Asawachintachit, had said the use of science and technology is paramount to drive the economic growth of the country.

“We want to drive economic growth through innovation and you can’t do that without science and technology,”

Despite the country growth opportunity for digital economy, Thailand still faces some difficult challenges to reach it full potential which includes the ability to fix the digital talent gap.

Fresh foreign investment would boost Thailand’s flagging economy, which is expected to grow by 2.8% later this year.