Amata Corporation’s Chairman, Dr Surin Pitsuwan led a Thai delegation to Yokohama City to underscore closer cooperation on Smart City, following a cooperation letter signed between the two parties.

The Thai delegation was warmly welcomed by Katsunori Watanabe, Deputy Mayor of Yokohama City.

Amata, the largest private Industrial Cities developer in Thailand, is transforming its 42km 2 industrial city located in Chonburi into a “Smart City” with state-of- the-art technology, renewable energy, energy efficient infrastructure and sustainable environmental management.

“We are located in the heart of the newly launched Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), we want to lead the country’s industrial sector and urbanisation into a new era. The ‘Smart city’ concept will guide us in raising our capacity to serve our investors and clients,” said the Chairman, who is also the immediate past Secretary-General of Asean.

Amata has established two industrial cities in Thailand, both are located within the EEC areas.

“We are essentially a new sprawling urban area with our own first rate infrastructure and logistics services. We have to plan ahead to be prepared for future expansion and transformation of the increasingly congested industrial and commercial region in the East,” he emphasises.

Amata Corporation has over 1,000 clients, mostly international corporations, with factories and manufacturing bases located in its 80 km 2 estates in Thailand. Each year, the factories output of Amata’s clients produce approximately 10 per cent of Thailand’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

A closer collaboration with Yokohama, one of the most successful ‘smart cities’ in the world, will give Amata a leading edge in transforming urban/industrial areas in Thailand into being more efficient, sustainable, competitive and livable production bases.

The Vision

Amata’s vision is to become the leading smart city Thailand and Asean to promote sustainable and energy efficient smart living within industrialised cities.

Amata had agreed on key collaboration areas on Smart City Collaboration with Yokohama City in early 2017. The City of Yokohama will share its expertise in the areas of integrated urban planning, application of technology and innovative smart urban management, sustainable urban environment, disaster and climate change and resilient Smart City development identified under Royal Thai Government’s Smart City program.

“Japanese investors are the top FDI investors for Thailand. In Amata City at Chonburi province, close to about 60% of our clientele are Japanese. Our Chairman, Dr. Surin’s visit to Yokohama is timely for Amata team to deepen the relationship with the Yokohama City government officials and set the stage for the Smart City Collaboration between Japan and Thailand.” Vikrom Kromadit, Chief Executive Officer of Amata Corporation PCL.

Undertaking collective collaboration with its citizens and the private sector, Yokohama has been transformed into one of the most livable and vibrant cities in the world.  One of Yokohama’s goals is to share its accumulated knowledge with other cities that face similar urban challenges and has actively undertaken various international cooperation activities to achieve this, including implementing public private partnership activities.

Y-PORT Center (Y-PORT: Yokohama Partnership of Resources and Technologies) was established in May 2015 as a leading platform for this initiative. Through Y-PORT Center, Yokohama is promoting city to city collaboration, sharing expertise of urban management, and introducing private sector firms that can provide urban solutions in Asian countries.