The Port Authority of Thailand (PAT) will spend 7.5 billion baht on improving services and facilities, and develop unused land at the Bangkok Port into a business and meeting complex in the next five years.
Deputy Transport Minister Pichit Akrathit said on Wednesday that PAT had to increase income from its assets from the equivalent of one percent of its total asset value to five percent. That would amount to a rise in yearly asset-based income from 700 million baht to 3.5 billion baht, he said.
According to Mr Pichit, PAT will commercially develop its unused land. The entire project will cost 7.5 billion baht, and is expected to take five years to complete. It consists of a 4.97-billion-baht plan for the improvement of ports, plus a 2.5-billion-baht plan to build a one-stop transport service centre.
The plan includes the development of 281 rai of unused land at the Bangkok Port in Klong Toey district - worth about 10 billion baht - into a riverside business and convention complex.
The complex would include shopping malls and hotels, but no residential buildings, Mr Pichit said.