Japanese investors assured of effective flood prevention in Thailand

OSAKA, JAPAN, June 28 (TNA) - Concerned authorities assured Thailand's improved water management, after learning from a flooding crisis late last year, at a gathering of Japanese investors in Japan's Osaka City Thursday. The message was delivered at the seminar on promotional investment policies in Thailand, organized by the Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI) under the Ministry of Industry, in which about 400 Japanese investors took part. Thai Industry Minister M.R. Pongsvasti Savasti announced that Japanese investors can now have confidence in flood prevention plans implemented by the Thai government, inviting the investors in Osaka to do their businesses in the healthily rebounding Thai economy. Thai Deputy Transport Minister Chatchart Sitthipan said, meanwhile, that his ministry is also elevating roads to block floods, covering those in front of the Saharattananakorn Industrial Estate, a site in the country's central Ayutthaya province heaviest hit and damaged by floods late last year. Secretary-General of Thailand's National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) Arkom Termpitayapaisit also insisted at the gathering that Thailand is now ready to welcome Japanese investors, backed by growing labor, infrastructure and transportation networks nationwide, as well as improved railways, expanding electric rail lines and cross-border road networks among countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). Besides, the Thai and Lao governments are constructing new hydropower dams to guarantee sufficient power supply in Thailand. Japanese investors have formed the biggest group of foreign investors in Thailand, with their investment projects having accounted for some 45 per cent of the BOI's overall promotional projects over the past five months, mostly in the local metal industry to support the Thai automobile industry. (TNA)