From its construction in 2005 to the current good operation, the Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park has become an industrial cluster center and manufacturing export base of China's traditional advantageous industries in Thailand. Especially when the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) comes into effect, the economic and trade exchanges between China and ASEAN will be closer, and Chinese enterprises will take this opportunity to adjust the demand for industrial chain adjustments. It will become the first choice for Chinese companies with foreign investment plans that cannot be ignored.

There are several reasons for saying it "cannot be ignored": First, Thailand is a founding member of ASEAN and has close economic and trade relations with China. The bilateral trade situation in 2021 is gratifying. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, the trade volume between China and Thailand in 2021 will reach 847.68566 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24%. Thailand also attaches great importance to attracting foreign investment. According to the data released by the Thailand Investment Promotion Board (BOI), the total amount of investment in Thailand in 2021 will exceed 640 billion baht, of which investment from China will reach 38.567 billion baht, and China is its second largest source of investment. country. The Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) of Thailand is still the most popular investment destination for foreign investors, and the Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park located in the core area of the corridor will naturally attract more attention.

Secondly, Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park has obvious location advantages, complete infrastructure, clear and accurate industrial positioning. From the geographical point of view, the park is 114 kilometers away from Bangkok, 27 kilometers away from Lim Chabang Port, and 99 kilometers away from Suvarnabhumi International Airport. The transportation and logistics conditions are very convenient. From the perspective of industrial positioning, the park focuses on automobile and motorcycle parts, electronic appliances, new energy, new materials, machinery and other industries. From the perspective of basic conditions, the overall planned area of Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park is 12 square kilometers. Since the construction began in July 2005, as of the end of December 2021, the main investment of the first and second phases of 4 square kilometers has been completed, and water and electricity have been completed. In 2015, the third phase of 8 square kilometers of development and investment was launched, mainly for the construction of "seven connections and one leveling" and supporting facilities, such as apartment buildings, commercial Building construction, etc.

Thirdly, the quality of the enterprises settled in the Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park is high, the business performance of the enterprises is good, and they have made achievements in sustainable development such as environmental protection and poverty alleviation. As of the end of December 2021, 165 companies have settled in the park, representative companies include Zhongce Rubber, Zhejiang Futong Group, Shenzhen CIMC Group, Hebei Lizhong Group, and Jiangsu Zhongli Group.

Finally, the Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park attaches great importance to the development of enterprises, and has achieved certain results in terms of obtaining preferential conditions in Thailand and optimizing enterprise services. In terms of preferential conditions, the settled enterprises can apply for BOI reduction or exemption of corporate income tax. Enterprises can enjoy a maximum of 13 years of corporate income tax reduction, exemption from importing machinery tariffs, importing raw materials for export purposes, exemption from tariffs, and preferential policies such as land ownership. In terms of optimizing enterprise services, the park currently provides one-stop Chinese services for settled enterprises, ranging from pre-investment business inspection, policy consultation, land property rights handling, company registration, BOI preferential application, project contracting, accounting and tax service recommendation, staff Recruitment and training, etc.

digital operations

From the perspective of the Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park, the overseas economic and trade cooperation zone starts from the central city in the countries along the Belt and Road, integrates policies and resources, has a clustering effect on upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, and provides new opportunities for Chinese enterprises to "go global". development opportunities. However, in the actual operation of the park, the Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park will also encounter some challenges. This includes both the problems that have existed before and the new problems brought about by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and they have been seeking support.

One of the challenges is the lack of cooperation between government and enterprises, which increases investment risks; the lack of international talents and the slow recovery of investment returns. In this regard, the Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park suggested that the government and trade and investment promotion agencies should provide a broader publicity platform for overseas parks and build bridges between the park and Chinese enterprises through a market-oriented operation mechanism. At the same time, strengthen the cooperation between the park and colleges and universities, and create a complex and international senior talent training channel.

The second test is that the construction period of the park is long, and the sponsors of the park and resident enterprises have financing pressure. Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park revealed that in order to solve the capital bottleneck encountered by enterprises in the park during the investment process, the park has established close cooperative relations with a number of financial institutions in Thailand, and signed a "Strategic Cooperation Memorandum" with BOC Thailand to reduce the cost of resident enterprises. Investment entry threshold. In 2018, the branch of ICBC (Thailand) Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park introduced in the park opened, and ICBC (Thailand) signed a memorandum of cooperation with the industrial park, providing Chinese-funded enterprises in the park with more extensive and convenient all-round financial support and services. Serve.

The third test, due to the continued epidemic in Thailand, coupled with the control of Thailand’s entry policy and isolation measures, most customers delayed or canceled their visits to Thailand, which greatly affected the investment promotion of the park. To this end, the park has specially launched a cloud inspection method. As the epidemic continued, the park found that cloud inspections could not fully meet the needs of investment promotion, so it resolutely increased the application of digital technology, and explored a set of new models of cloud inspection, cloud registration, cloud account opening, cloud defense and cloud foundation.

In the face of the continuation of the epidemic and the transformation of many industries in the Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park into a high-tech direction, the park will realize digital operations in the future and connect with professional service agencies to better conduct business; the cloud investment method will also be different from the traditional The ways of attracting investment are complementary and parallel to create a smart park. In the future, government departments and trade and investment promotion agencies can also go online or offline into economically strong provinces to hold investment promotion conferences, symposiums or seminars, etc., so that domestic enterprises interested in "going out" can fully understand the local area and the park. specific situation.

The Thailand-China Rayong Industrial Park suggests that Chinese enterprises "going out" should learn more about the legal system of the investment destination country, and can develop only if they cultivate stronger international competitiveness; they should pay attention to learning the RCEP rules of origin and local The preferential policies enjoyed; it is also necessary to operate legally and compliantly, respect local culture and folk customs, and carry out management of Thai employees according to local conditions.Editor/XuNing