Incentives approved for vaccine support, carbon reduction

Thailand’s Board of Investment (BoI) has created a set of visionary incentives, approving privileges last week for companies engaged in or supporting vaccine development, and perks for others that cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

BoI Secretary-General Duangjai Asawachintachit said that companies already enjoying privileges are eligible for additional tax incentives. They can receive those incentives if they provide financial support to vaccine or medical research and development (R&D) projects run by public educational and research institutes or government agencies.

Thailand has one of the strongest public health systems among middle-income countries. Since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, several Thai research institutes have been developing a variety of vaccines and innovative treatments. Some institutes and companies are seeking more investments to scale up their efforts.

The medical science field is one of the dozen sectors the government is focusing on and supporting as a means to propel the Kingdom to a more advanced level of development. Another sector essential to that goal is green industry.

The BoI also approved measures to encourage investments to safeguard the environment, support sustainable development, and accelerate development of the bio, circular and green (BCG) economy. The measures include 3-year tax holidays for investments in machinery upgrades aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Investments in cold storage facilities and cold storage transport operations using natural refrigerants, that reduce impact on the environment, will be granted 3-year corporate income tax exemptions.

Petrochemical production facilities implementing Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage technologies will be granted 8-year corporate income tax exemptions.

In addition, the BoI agreed to improve the investment promotion policy for manufacturing all types of electric vehicles to help jump-start the sector, which is one of the government’s target industries.

Photo courtesy of https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-get-boi-promotion-100-foreign-owned-plizz-thailand