“The EEC, along with the Thailand 4.0 policy, is the key to our business strategy, as it is in line with the digital transformation of our company,” Pierre Jaffre, president of Airbus Asia Pacific said at seminar, Next Step Thailand EEC, that conducts by Krungthep Turakij daily newspaper yesterday.

 The EEC is a special economic zone covering the provinces of Chon Buri, Chachoengsao and Rayong. Airbus Asia Pacific is among the many foreign companies that have begun investing in the EEC. Other earlier backers include Hatachi and Huawei.

Airbus has a maintenance, repair and overhaul hub (MRO) in the EEC region. In addition, the multinational company aims to advance its space-technology activities in the zone and has recently signed a contract to assemble a satellite in the economic corridor. 

 This year some 7,000 aircraft fly across the Asia Pacific region. This figure is expected to increase to 20,000 in the next 20 years, according to Jaffre. 

 “Hence, there is a need to increase the maintenance capacity in the Asian-Pacific region,” he said. “The Thai government’s Thailand 4.0 policy and the development of the EEC present us with a |promising opportunity to meet this need, and we now have an MRO service centre in operation in the region.

“Airbus has also signed a contract to assemble a satellite in the EEC area, aiming to respond to the increasing usage of smartphones.

“We believe our proposal to assemble a satellite in Thailand is timely with the Thai government’s Thailand 4.0 policy.”

 He said Airbus is also in discussions with regulators on a plan to provide emergency medical services by helicopter in the EEC region. 

 “I believe we all agree that the death toll from road accidents in Thailand is extremely high. With the development of the EEC, there is no doubt that there will also be more traffic in the region,” Jeffre said.

He cites the problem of emergency medical workers often being held up by heavy traffic when they try to reach accident scenes.

 “The helicopter emergency medical service which Airbus proposes will allow medical services to reach victims of road accidents at a faster pace,” he said. 

Other companies have also been active in seizing opportunities in the EEC.

Hitachi (Thailand) Co Ltd, set up the Lumada, an Internet of Things (IoT) hub for the Asean region in Chon Buri earlier this year. 

Lumada functions as a hub that offers IoT services for companies in Thailand and elsewhere in the Asean region. “In Asean, we have been working to improve the productivity of various manufacturers. Recently, we partnered with a company which manufactures car sensors located in Chachoengsao province, and have managed to significantly improve their productivity,” said Somsak Garnjanakarn, general manager of Hitachi (Thailand). 

Hitachi has invested more than Bt50 billion to establish the IoT hub, reaffirming its commitment to make Thailand its central unit for services to the Asean region. It expects to generate revenue of Bt60 billion in Thailand in the 2018 fiscal year. 

 In a speech addressing the tourism strategy for the EEC, Tourism and Sports Minister, Weerasak Kowsurat said that marketing efforts to attract visitors would be geared to improving the livelihoods of local communities, instead of a more narrow focus on merely attracting large numbers of tourists. 

 More emphasis will be placed on improving the value chain in the tourist industry and less on the quantity of tourists visiting the region itself, Weerasak said.

“This could include providing an ‘all you can eat’ farm tour where tourists can visit local farmers in the EEC area and eat fresh fruit directly from the crops,” he said.

 Weerasak said the admission fees that would be charged, along with revenue from additional services provided at participating farms, would significantly boost incomes for farmers in addition to their mainstay business of providing produce for the markets.

The minister did not offer any clear policy that will address the issue of the decline in the number of Chinese visitors. In August, 867,000 Chinese visited the Kingdom, down 11.77 per cent month on month. In September, only 648,000 Chinese visited, marking an even steeper fall of 14.89 per cent month on month. 

 Weerasak played down the concerns, insisting that 2018 will see a higher total volume of tourists than the 35 million booked for 2017. 

He pointed to the fact that although the ranks of Chinese visitors have been declining since a fatal boat accident in Phuket in July, the figures are still higher than for the corresponding period last year.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/Economy/30358647