The automotive powerhouse of the Southeast Asian region, Thailand is expected to build more than two million vehicles annually within the next two years on the back of a recovering global economy, the Bangkok Post reports. The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) said that by then, the Thai automotive industry should bounce back from slow sales mainly caused by COVID-19 lockdowns.
Car production in the Land of Smiles last hit the two million unit mark just before the pandemic, reaching a high of 2,167,694 vehicles in 2018 – 1,142,733 of which were produced for export. Last year, the country managed to surpass FTI’s expectations, increasing production by 18.1% year-on-year to 1.68 million units, above the federation’s 1.6 million target.
For 2022, FTI expects production to increase again to 1.8 million vehicles, with exports pegged at 900,000 to 950,000 units. And while incentives for electric vehicles – which includes an up to 40% reduction in customs duty – could boost imports, it won’t be at the expense of long-term domestic manufacturing.
“Though car importers will benefit from the package, the government eventually wants to have more investments in EV development within the country,” said the organisation’s automotive club vice chairman and spokesperson Surapong Paisitpatanapong.
The National EV Policy Committee of Thailand announced last March that it wanted EVs to make up 50% of local production by 2030, as part of an “ambitious” plan to make the country a regional EV production hub. Surapong said he believes the incentive package will help bolster the automotive industry.
“We will see more clearly any progress in the EV market in the second half this year, driven by the response to incentives for both carmakers and buyers,” he said.
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The 2 million cars production could have been Bolehland,as the Detriot of Asia.
Due to the failed experiment with P1,and even with emergence of P2..our total production volume is only around 600,000 units.
Even with a military gomen with little democracy..Thailand has performed exceptionally well with such a volume.
Remind me what happen to Detroit of USA again? Ahh yes, super high unemployment, ageing population, no hope, high incident of crime and this is what you want us to become?
You’ve been watching too many movies…
Not when there is an actual Wiki page about it
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_Detroit
That Wikipedia page also contains a subsection entitled ‘Resurgence’. So all is not doom & gloom.
Well, At least, Junta had to rely on those technocrats to ensure high economic growth without losing the power grips while making political alliances with those can get along with junta including civil servants and politicians to create network of power.
Furthermore, Thai capitalists do not give a damn who are going to run the country so long they are serving their interests well. For those whose ideologies are up against Thai capitalists, those capitalists in question can ask the government to do them a favor to purge them outright or discredit such persons to become persona non grata for sure.
For the issue of automobiles, Federation of Thai Industries strongly encourage the productions of electric vehicles or at least zero emission vehicles both foreign investors and domestic enterpreneurs so the old fossil fuel vehicles will be phased out in 2035.
Major pollution exporter of the world