The Review of Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor: Potential and Opportunity

Abstract

The Eastern Economic Corridor has been applied from January 2018 and is developed from the former Eastern Seaboard which have been implemented for over thirty years. The Thai government attempts to move the “Detroit of the East” to the manufacturing paradise of Asia, designed to accommodate innovative industries and the Thailand 4.0 era. The EEC consists of the three Eastern provinces: Rayong, Chonburi, and Chachoengsao, aiming to set out infrastructure developments, generous inducements, and investment enablement. The government has set out three pillars including infrastructure developments, super-generous incentives, and investment facilitation in order to employ the EEC. It is said that the primary concern in the EEC zone is to accommodate the foreign investment in automotive, electronics, tourism, agricultural and biotechnology, logistics and aviation, biochemical, digital and medical services. This is a documentary research where the researcher studies the context of the EEC in the international investment dimension. In reviewing the literature, it is found that there is a scarcity in researching the EEC area focusing on the foreign direct investment. Therefore, this paper provides an analytical view on the opportunities for foreign trade and investment in Thailand. As of the researcher’s view, Thailand has high potential in attracting the investors since we have abundant natural resources and modern petrochemical industries.