The Eastern Economic Corridor Office and the Japan External Trade Organisation (Jetro) have pledged to work together to encourage Japanese firms and other companies located in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) to tap more into digital manufacturing platforms to reduce production costs.
Kanit Sangsubhan, secretary-general of the EEC Office, said his office and Jetro aim to promote 10,000 factories in EEC to transform their production to automation systems to reduce production costs by 30% within five years.
The transformation can drive Thai industries to be based on high technology that can generate higher value.
As part of the transformation drive, the EEC through a partnership with Jetro, Mitsubishi Electric Factory Automation and Burapha University established the EEC Automation Park in Chon Buri's Bang Saen where automation innovation and human resources can be developed to cater to the industrial sector.
The EEC Automation Park is scheduled to kick off next month. This automation park is one of the three such facilities in the EEC.
The automation park will offer upskilling and reskilling courses for engineers, high-skilled workers, university graduates and students to train in the automation systems.
The EEC has targeted to produce 475,000 workers to supply the 12 targeted industries in five years while automation parks will support the development of human resources to reach the target.
Mr Kanit said the EEC is also working with Jetro, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to attract Japanese investment to Thailand and support Japanese companies to use automation.
The EEC has targeted 200 factories to implement automation systems next year and all 10,000 factories will be transformed into automation systems within five years.
He said Thailand's investment in 5G, digital, smart factories, data centres, cloud services, digital platforms and automation is estimated at 500 billion baht over the next three years.