The government looks set to tap into the Global Partnership Fund and Competitiveness Fund as tools to draw foreign investment in high technology and targeted industries.
Luxmon Attapich, advisor to the president of the Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI), which handles the Global Partnership Fund, recently discussed with the Board of Investment (BoI) using existing funds as a tool to draw foreign investment.
The BoI agreed to use its Competitiveness Fund worth 10 billion baht to support R&D projects that can be developed to commercial scale.
The Global Partnership Fund was established in 2020 to strengthen national science, research and innovation; create opportunities for the development of science, research and the basic infrastructure of innovation; and support collaboration and networking between domestic and foreign research institutions.
The fund is supported by the government's annual budget through the TSRI, and is supervised by the National Higher Education Science, Research and Innovation Policy Council. It offers three main groups of projects: competitiveness enhancement; research excellence; and environment and sustainable development.
The TSRI plans to allocate 17.1 billion baht in fiscal 2023 to support R&D projects, up by 2.85 billion from 14.2 billion in fiscal 2022.
According to Mrs Luxmon, the Global Partnership Fund has allocated a combined 864 million baht in the past three years to support the R&D projects.
She said Thailand's expenditure on R&D accounted for 1.33% of GDP in 2020, up from 1.14% in 2019.
Thailand spent 193 billion baht on R&D in 2019, an increase of 5.9% year-on-year.
Of this amount, 23% or 43.8 billion baht came from the government sector, while the private sector spent 77% or 149 billion baht.
The top three industries with the most R&D investment were food, petroleum, and finance and insurance.
The government has targeted spending on R&D to reach 2% of GDP in 2027.