New perks sought for van makers

       Additional measures will be put into the national automotive industry plan to facilitate its recovery from the global economic crisis, according to Vallop Tiasiri, director of the Thailand Automotive Institute.
       As the country's automotive production and exports have faced serious trouble, Mr Vallop said industry operators had sought more supportive measures and incentives for the local production of vans from the Board of Investment and the Office of Industrial Promotion.
       "The global economic slump has led to almost 50% excess production capacity, which affects our national automotive industry plan for 2007-11," he said."So the plan has to be altered, with new products added to absorb this excess capacity since we've heard that Japanese manufacturers are looking to invest in van production here."
       Local production of pickup trucks and passenger cars, once the country's flagship exports, has shrunk by almost 50%from 1.8 million units produced last year to a projected 900,000 this year, Mr Vallop said.
       He added that the excess capacity had affected vehicle producers, as well as auto-parts suppliers.
       To reduce the excess capacity, he said,high-roof van production could be introduced to make use of the existing idle production lines of passenger-car and truck makers.
       "The stronger yen against major currencies should also promote Japanese investment overseas. By choosing Thailand as their production base, the Japanese could also access other Asean markets," Mr Vallop said.
       "Additional incentives are being studied to keep local trucks assembling plants running.
       "Truck assemblers are also facing a shrinking demand. They plan to close their plants in either Thailand or Indonesia due to excess production capacity.What we are doing now is to propose more incentives to persuade them to keep their operations here and close plants elsewhere instead."
       If the plants in Indonesia are closed,local truck assemblers should also gain market opportunities in Indonesia as well.
       The additional incentives to support the incumbent plan, expected to be finalised in a few months, will take into consideration the advantages and disadvantages of the Asean free trade agreement.
       The industry's 2012-16 strategic plan,to be ready by 2011, will focus on supporting the local production of fuelefficient vehicles.