Thai floods: Water being drained from industrial parks

In Thailand, efforts to clear the flood waters in industrial parks that were inundated last month are underway. Reports say that water is currently being pumped out of four of the seven affected industrial parks.

The floods have impacted around 450 Japanese companies, or approximately a third of all Japanese manufacturers with an operations base in Thailand. Now, with the waters receding, many are preparing to restart plants that had to be closed down due to the flooding.

At Rojana Industrial Park in Ayutthaya, the draining exercise began on November 7, and the flood barrier is no longer submerged – around a million tons of water is being pumped out daily, the reports add, with an early December forecast for the completion of the process being bandied about.

While it’ll take time to clean up, repair and restore the necessary infrastructure as well as replace production equipment, the progress currently being made on the drainage has offered companies an anticipation of resumption of production. Among the companies based in Rojana is Honda, as well as camera maker Nikon. As of the beginning of the week, Honda Thailand issued a statement that it did not have a clear outlook for when production will resume.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that they were hit hard by the severe flooding, Japanese manufacturers appear determined to maintain Thailand’s status as a key export base, further reports say. The country remains important for Japanese firms, which are expanding production abroad to deal with a strong yen and diversify locations in response to the Great East Japan Earthquake earlier in the year.

Thailand’s appeal, the reports state, lies in the fact that more materials and parts suppliers are concentrated there than in any other country in the region. And speed too is part of the parcel, it might seem – Toyota’s Thai factory is among the fastest of the company’s 50 or so global assembly plants, able to roll out a vehicle every 56 seconds.

Production of 1-tonne pickup trucks is also firmly entrenched in the Kingdom, with being exported to markets globally. “We have no intention of shifting production to another country,” Mitsubishi Motors Corporation president Osamu Masuko said. “We’ll prepare for natural disasters by increasing the percentage of parts procured from neighboring countries,” he added. MMC has resumed operations at its Thai plant, after a one-month suspension.

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