Perks for 7 EEC zones to be introduced soon

Details of special incentives for seven economic zones in the government's flagship Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) are scheduled to be announced over the next few days.

Kanit Sangsubhan, secretary-general to the EEC Office, said interested investors will be allowed to apply immediately after the incentives are announced.

According to Mr Kanit, the special incentives his office is going to offer to investment projects in the seven economic zones are similar to the Board of Investment's (BoI) privileges, but one major difference is the EEC Office will offer them to groups of companies or clusters of industries, while the BoI offers its incentives to individual companies.

Under BoI law, the board is allowed to offer the highest privileges available in the country: a corporate income tax exemption for eight years, and a 50% reduction in the corporate income tax rate for five years once the tax holiday lapses if the applying projects invest in R&D or human resource development.

The BoI is required to offer incentives to individual companies providing the same treatment.

"Many companies that invest in robotics and digital projects changed their investment destinations to neighbouring countries such as Vietnam and Singapore because they offer more flexible mechanisms to draw investors," Mr Kanit said.

He said his office is allowed to offer not only special tax incentives to groups of companies or clusters of industries, but also other non-tax privileges to applying investors.

Mr Kanit said the special incentives in the seven zones will be offered primarily to five groups of new S-curve industries: robotics; logistics; smart medical; digital industry; and the bio-, circular and green economy.

The new special incentives are expected to be offered to innovative projects that help support government services, he said.

Earlier this month the cabinet granted permission for the EEC Office to offer privileges to investors in the seven EEC economic zones on a case-by-case basis to make Thailand more attractive to potential investors.

The seven economic zones comprise: EEC for aviation (EECa); EEC for innovation (EECi); EEC for digital (EECd); EEC for the medical hub (EECmd); EEC of genomics (EECg); EEC of high-speed rail (EECh); and the Digital and High Technology Centre, Ban Chang, Rayong.

EECa is deemed the pilot project for which the EEC Office will offer special incentives.