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Articles
BOI’s New Investment Promotion Strategy (2023 - 2027)
On 8 December 2022, Thailand’s Board of Investment (“BOI”), one of the Thai government’s agencies set up to aid the fulfillment of key development schemes, announced its new investment promotion strategy for the next five years (2023 - 2027) in the Announcement No. 8/2565 Re: Policies and Criteria for Investment Promotion (“Announcement”). This new investment promotion strategy replaces the previous eight-year plan (2015 - 2022), i.e., the Announcement No. 2/2557 Re: Policies and Criteria for Investment Promotion dated 3 December 2014. The content of this Announcement is now in full effect and it applies to all applications for investment promotion submitted with the BOI as from 3 January 2023.
Under the new strategy, the BOI sets out to focus on the following three core aspects deemed essential to the progress of Thailand’s economy as to promote the “Thailand 4.0” scheme and to move away from an economy dependent on labor and natural resources to more sustainable, high-tech industries:
1) Innovative: driven by technology, innovation, and creativity;
2) Competitive: have the ability to compete, adapt quickly, and generate high growth; and
3) Inclusive: consider environmental and social sustainability as well as promote inclusiveness and alleviate disparity.
The new investment promotion strategy does not introduce any significant changes to the fundamental criteria in applying for new investment promotion. In fact, some of the key criteria which still apply to applicants include a 20% annual revenue growth projection, the requirement to use new machinery (with limited exemptions for used machinery), the minimum one million THB investment, and a 3:1 debt-to-equity ratio threshold. Nevertheless, although activity-based incentives still remain divided into Groups A and B, and most incentives for each group remain the same, certain new updates were made to this part of the Announcement. For instance, Group A1+ category was added to Group A in order to include incentives, such as a 10 to 13-year corporate income tax (“CIT”) exemption (without setting the tax limit for such exemption), exemption of import duty on machinery, and other non-tax incentives. As for Group B, the incentives still focus only on non-CIT incentives, such as import duty on machinery exemption and other non-tax incentives.; however, Groups B1 and B2 have been removed from the Announcement.
In addition to the Announcement, the BOI also issued another 16 announcements ( announcements No. 9/2565 to No. 24/2565) on 8 December 2022 in order to provide further clarifications on relevant measures, and such announcements also came into force on 3 January 2023. Furthermore, there is one additional announcement that BOI issued on 16 December 2022 ( announcement No. Por. 4/2565) which determines the activities that are not eligible for certain incentives under the BOI announcements No. 11/2465 to 15/2565 and No. 17/2565.
This is intended merely to provide a regulatory overview and not to be comprehensive, nor to provide legal advice. Should you have any questions on this or on other areas of law, please do not hesitate to contact the following:
Nuttaros Tangprasitti
Partner
Pimsiri Harnpanicharoen
Associate
Nuttaros Tangprasitti specialises in corporate and commercial law. She regularly assists both international and domestic corporate clients (limited liability companies and partnerships, stock corporation in several industries) on the relevant laws of Thailand, which includes foreign direct investment, legal due diligence, M&A and cross-border M&A, joint venture, compliance, banking and finance. In addition to supporting clients on the above and a multitude of different legal formalities, she also has expertise in advising on various investment promotion policies of the Board of Investment (BOI), as well as compliance with foreign business, other laws on salient points for shareholders and joint venture agreements, which includes laws on immigration and foreign work under Thai law. Nuttaros speaks at many seminars and takes an active role in educating the clients on issues relevant to their businesses and her practice areas. She also writes various articles and newsletters on cutting-edge topics in several legal areas, which are widely distributed to existing and potential clients. Nuttaros aims to ensure the lawyers on her team are constantly developing and upgrading their skills, to ensure they meet or exceed the high professional standards of Nishimura & Asahi. She is committed to ensuring that both she and our firm deliver top-quality services to our clients and strong internal support for our colleagues. She recently began drafting a manual on several aspects of Thai law, as part of an “Investment promotion scheme,” and also wrote several newsletters on corporate law, and banking and finance laws. She also recently authored an article on the impact of Tax Reduction for Land and Buildings, which received excellent feedback from our clients, particularly those who are land and building owners. Nuttaros is committed to building a strong and progressive corporate and commercial practice, which also incorporates tax law, by adapting to new ideas in the legal industry.