(BangkokPost.com, Agencies)
Ford will decide where to invest the earmarked $1 billion by the end of June. China and India are possible alternative destinations.
The vice president for international government offices for Ford, Steve Biegun, has been in Thailand for meetings, including a face-to-face discussion with Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont.
This morning, he was quoted by the Bloomberg news agency on his concern over the restrictions.
“These things make it extremely difficult to do business in a globally competitive environment,” he said. “What we need in our business is predictability.”
The same agency quoted Kim Eng Tan, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s in Singapore, who expressed pessimism over the recent moves by the central bank and the government.
“Thailand’s potential for economic growth and investment liberalization has definitely taken a knocking,” he told Bloomberg. “We are seeing an increase in policy risk that may deter investors.”
Ford is among Thailand’s top 20 foreign companies, and the No 5 automaker by sales. Its total investment so far is about $1 billion.
It is reviewing plans to build a new plant with capacity for 150,000 cars, and to extend existing output by an additional 24,000 vehicles at a 176,000- unit factory it operates with Mazda Motor Corp at Rayong.
The Sept 19 coup and subsequent measures “have generated a sense of turmoil,” Mr Biegun said. “We came to discuss with government very specifically the policies surrounding the auto industry and what should be the expectations of a potential investor.”
Ford wants to make sure that Thailand will remain “a stable place to do business.”
“So far the government is moving in a direction that could keep things together, but they have a monumental task ahead of them,” said Mr Biegun.
Posted on January 31st, 2007 by marfy
Filed under: Business, Finance & Economy
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