Thailand’s Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) yesterday held a Thailand-Japan Economic Forum. The JSCCIB invited a group of 60 Japanese investors to join the event.

Akio Mimura, chairman of the JCCI, said the TPP would open up opportunities for Japanese investors, and Thailand was regarded as a destination for Japanese investment, but this country has not joined the TPP yet.

The JCCI says it will help Thailand deal with some of the barriers it faces in joining the US-led trade pact.

Boontuck Wungcharorn, chairman of the Thai Bankers’ Association, said the JSCCIB would discuss the TPP at a meeting next week before submitting its conclusions to the government for consideration.

Mimura said half of new investment by Japanese companies in Thailand was by SMEs, but the high cost of labour here was causing them to worry. Possible solutions included increasing productivity and the migration of agricultural labour to the industrial sector.

Piti Tantakasem, chief wholesale banking officer at TMB Bank, told the forum that the government’s investments were a key economic driver and there was sufficient money to do this because the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product is only 40 per cent. A manageable proportion is 60 per cent of GDP.

Infrastructure projects in three main areas are mostly responsible for this economic stimulus: railways, energy and telecommunications. Japanese investors are able to join in these projects because they have the necessary expertise, Piti said. Teruo Asada, chairman of the board of Marubeni Corporation, said his company was interested in investing in Thailand’s infrastructure, as in the past it had been involved in many projects here, especially power plants and deep-water ports.