Thailand’s Measures and New Incentives to Frontline Health Services and Back-end Supply Chains

Board of Investment, Thailand granted additional measures in the month of April to fast track investments in the manufacturing of medical equipment that could have positive implications for the healthcare sector’s strategic goals.

We all know Thailand’s response to the pandemic has been robust and this could have been possible because of their excellent health care system. In fact, the country was ranked 6^th out of 195 countries in the last year’s Global Health Security Index, meaning Thailand had the highest-ranked emerging economy and Asian country, specially devised to measure any country’s preparedness for a pandemic.

To keep up with its reputation in the healthcare sector Thailand was anyway working to establish itself as the Asian medical hub. This prompted a Ministry of Public Health’s 2016-25 strategic plan titled; “Thailand: A Hub of Wellness and Medical Services”. In order to achieve this, the stakeholders have been doing all the hard work so as to create an advanced medical industry ecosystem lead by innovation and technology.

This plan aligns with the Thai government so as to overreach the 4.0 strategy that was designed to escape the “middle-income trap” by cultivating innovative and high-value manufacturing and service industries. The country being already popular as an international healthcare tourism place, there’s a push to develop the medical ecosystem of the country that was partially driven by an ageing population and expected to result in the rising domestic demand for high-quality healthcare services.

List of New Incentives

With the pre-existing tax holiday between 3 to 8 years for the companies working in the medical equipment and supply industry, the updated measures include;

• A 50% reduction in the CIT for more 3 years;
• Manufacturers of existing production lines to manufacture medical devices will be relieved from import duties on machinery;
• Some additional tax benefits are offered to the companies who are producing non-woven fabric for the manufacturing of medical masks or other medical equipment;