12 EASTERN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR
Covestro sees the EEC as a key to sustainable economic growth Nich-navin Chullabrahm
In building the full potential for the successful establishment of the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), Covestro supports the promotion of knowledge and professionalism in innovation and sustainability through labour force skills enhancement in order to drive Thailand’s economic growth and achieve a sustainable future. To optimize the country’s competitiveness, the Government of Thailand has initiated “Thailand 4.0”. This policy is aimed at transforming the country and makes it more innovation driven. In order to achieve success for the policy, the EEC was launched as a flagship project with the objective of promoting foreign investment in key strategic areas covering Chachoengsao, Chonburi and Rayong provinces on the eastern coast of Thailand. The EEC is already being identified as a major economic zone for business and industrial clusters and innovation hubs, with the goals of enhancing economic growth and potential for becoming a strategic gateway to the South-East Asian region. Investments mainly focus on S-curve industries that comprise future automotive, aviation and logistics, smart electronics, medical products and supplements, robotics and new cutting-edge digital solutions, and biotechnology. With these potential industries exploring the area for investment, the EEC will become an attractive destination for foreign investors contributing to its good infrastructure, logistics systems and industrial estate areas as well as its further infrastructure investment programmes such as a deep-sea port at Map Ta Phut. This will create greater convenience for the petrochemical industry as part of the wider Thailand 4.0 plan to transform Thai economy into South-East Asia’s engine of growth. “Realising that this is a great opportunity to provide support to the key
UPDATE 1/2020
industries in Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor, Covestro believes that the approval for trade and investment in the project can help to develop Thailand’s eastern provinces into a leading ASEAN economic zone in the future. To respond accordingly with this national policy, our direction is to drive innovations inspired by sustainability, similarly to how our standard business’ activities are run everywhere that we operate. Our major focus is on introducing and transferring our knowledge and practices in developing a circular economy in the plastics and chemical
