Farm machinery maker Siam Kubota Corporation is upbeat about its prospects this year after sales grew by 4% to 50 billion baht in 2016.
The company has set a sales growth target of 10% for 2017.
Siam Kubota president Hiroto Kimura said the 2016 sales increase was helped by rising sales in overseas markets.
The company has already commenced operations and exported to countries in Southeast Asia, namely Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, posting high growth from large areas of cultivated land and crops and farmers' growing shift to using modern farm machinery.
Agricultural machinery popular in those markets include power tillers, diesel-powered engines, tractors and combine harvesters.
According to Mr Kimura, the company has continuously developed sales and service networks in its overseas markets. At the same time, the company is identifying and working with local financial partners to assist buyers with limited funds to increase private ownership of Kubota products.
Last year, exports contributed 23 billion baht to the company, with domestic sales making for 27 billion baht.
Founded in 2010, Siam Kubota Corporation is a 60:40 joint venture of Japan's Kubota Corporation and Siam Cement Group.
"As a sign of our commitment to increase our product distribution coverage in the region, this year the company and Kubota Corporation Japan formed a joint venture company in Myanmar with the Thai company and the Japanese parent company holding 20% and 80% stake respectively," Mr Kimura said.
Senior executive vice-president Opart Dhanvarjor said brighter prospects are also anticipated in the domestic market this year, as farmers have turned to innovative farming techniques that can boost productivity while achieving lower production costs.
The Thai government has devised a policy to encourage local farmers to jointly purchase production materials and grow farm produce in bulk under the "megafarm" scheme, which outlines public-private collaborations to develop better living standards in the agricultural community.
This year, the company plans to introduce new harvesting machines developed to substitute farmers' heavy reliance on manual workers during harvesting season.
The company will leverage agricultural knowledge and solutions to support its marketing in 2017 with the aim of promoting the higher machinery use in farms.
"To meet these changes and in order to move Thai agricultural sector, the company will apply the 'Kubota (Agri) Solutions', which uses supplementary dual application of the company's agricultural machinery and innovative farming techniques to offer Thai farmers added precision and consistency for changing single crop farming to multiple crops, soil preparations, planting, maintenance, harvesting, post-harvest management and product transportation," Mr Opart said.
"This strategy will underpin the company's business operations in the near future."