Three property and industrial estate developers have joined hands to build an "industrial-tech ecosystem" to further strengthen Thailand as an investment destination in Southeast Asia.
The ecosystem, which will be developed and operated by joint venture Araya Land Development, forged by three companies, is a mix of modern technology-driven businesses, including data centres, advanced manufacturing and R&D, an industrial estate, a logistics park, lifestyle amenities and residential areas.
The new company was jointly founded by Frasers Property (Thailand) Plc with a 50% investment, Rojana Industrial Park Plc, with a 25% stake, and Asia Industrial Estate Co, with a 25% stake.
"We named the project 'Araya -- The Eastern Gateway', which is more than just a development. It represents a cohesive and interconnected industrial-tech ecosystem," said Kamonkarn Kongkathong, managing director of Araya Land Development.
The project, which spans more than 4,600 rai of land at KM32 on Bang Na-Trat Road on the outskirts of Bangkok, requires 50-60 billion baht for land purchases and infrastructure development, said Panote Sirivadhanabhakdi, group chief executive of Frasers Property.
"We aim to reinforce Thailand's status as a reliable investment hub and attract foreign direct investment [FDI] to stimulate the country's economy," said Ms Kamonkarn.
Araya Land Development is the latest company entering the industrial estate development business. While it differentiates itself from rivals with the ecosystem concept, others draw customers with eco-friendly industrial parks and a greater use of clean energy through, for example, electric vehicles.
Industrial estate developers want to benefit from a projected rise in the number of foreign investors that are expected to expand or relocate their production facilities to Southeast Asia to avoid the impact of geopolitical conflicts and a new round of trade war, caused by the new US tariff policy.
The Board of Investment expects investments in Thailand to gain momentum this year, following a surge in applications for investment incentives by 35% in value terms to 1.14 trillion baht last year, the highest level recorded since 2014, led by large FDI projects in data centres and cloud services.
FDI represented 73% of the total value of applications in 2024. Singapore led the FDI source rankings with a total investment value of 357 billion baht, followed by China (over 174 billion baht), Hong Kong (82.3 billion baht), Taiwan (50 billion baht) and Japan (49.1 billion baht).