Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has invited three major US companies to invest in Thailand, saying the country is adequately equipped to serve as their production bases.
Mr Srettha visited Tesla's electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plant on Tuesday, where he attended a test run of its cyber truck, which is expected to be unveiled in the US this month. He also met Tesla executives for talks about investment opportunities in Thailand and said that they expressed interest in investing and that they were expected to make a decision in the first quarter of the next year.
Mr Srettha is currently in the US to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in San Francisco.
Narit Therdsteerasukdi, secretary-general of the Thai Board of Investment (BoI), previously said the EV industry is one of three key industries, along with electronics and digital, that the prime minister will focus on when he meets with leading US business leaders.
Mr Narit said Thailand had seen 700% growth in the EV industry, with 6,000 EVs registered over the past nine months.
He said the government is committed to becoming the region's EV production hub, with the National EV Policy Committee chaired by Mr Srettha earlier this month approving a new EV incentive package, dubbed EV3.5, to replace another package set to expire on Dec 31.
Mr Srettha on Tuesday also met executives of HP Inc, which develops personal computers, laptops and printers and invited them to invest, set up a regional office and a production base to develop a supply chain in Thailand.
Thailand's infrastructure is ready to accommodate investment, and the government has a policy to ease doing business to promote foreign investment, Mr Srettha said.
"We also discussed tax incentives as the company wants to expand its production capacity next month. The company's CEO will meet with me again, and we expect to reach a conclusion by this month," Mr Srettha said. He added that he also invited HP to co-invest in the land bridge megaproject, which will benefit HP's supply chain development.
The 1-trillion-baht megaproject aims to develop a logistics network connecting Ranong along the Andaman Sea to Chumphon along the Gulf of Thailand.
Mr Srettha said he also held talks with executives of Analog Devices, a global leader in the design and manufacturing of integrated circuits, who also expressed interest in setting up a plant in Thailand.