Major growth areas & investment sectors
- Electronics / Electrical Appliances / PCB & advanced electronics
- The Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) reports that for January-September 2024, approved investment value hit ~ 745,962 million baht (~US$ 20-25 billion) — up ~40 % year-on year
- Within that, electronics / electrical appliances (including solar, smart electronics) accounted for nearly half of the approved investment value in 2023.
- On PCBs: Thailand is emerging as a top-5 global hub for PCB manufacturing, with ~180 projects worth over 200 billion baht between 2022-mid-2025.
- Implication: For your manufacturing/quality engineering context (electronics, PCBA, SMT), Thailand is scaling rapidly in higher value electronics. Good environment to leverage quality systems.
Automotive / e-Mobility / Vehicle parts
- The automotive & parts sector is one of the top categories for expansion investments (January-July 2025: vehicle/auto parts manufacturing top in expansion).
- Thailand retains strong automotive manufacturing heritage (pick-ups, parts, exports) and is now seeing transition to EVs and related supply chain. (See news note: e.g., Hyundai Motor Company invests in EV assembly/batteries in Thailand)
- For a quality engineer in PCBA/SMT, this means supplier ecosystems for automotive electronics are growing — raising expectations for supplier quality, automotive-grade standards, etc
Geographic & regulatory enablers
- The number of factories licensed for operation in H1 2024 increased: new operations up ~25% vs H1 2023; expansions up ~83%.
- Outside just listing, licences for establishing/expanding large-scale factories outside industrial estates reached 2,598 factories in 2023, investment value 356.14 billion baht (+23% vs 2022) and employed ~106,631 people.