Some extracts from our discussion:

• Q:

  Why did you choose to join Amata?

• A:

  I had been managing language education institutes at universities in Thailand and the Philippines, but it’s a narrow field and I felt I could better use my communication and negotiating skills in business sales. I had the opportunity to join Japanese companies, but after meeting our founder, Mr Vikrom Kromadit, I decided that joining Amata would be more challenging.

• Q:

  How do you “sell” Amata to foreign investors?

• A:

  Our Smart City development is quite unique because our vision is always long-term. If, like some other industrial park operators, we just focused on providing industrial land and quickly selling it, it would be more profitable in the short term. But we provide the value-added commercial facilities that contribute to the convenience of our tenants and local communities. In addition, our utilities such as water and power, are the highest standard and we focus on sustainability. We are truly an industrial city and for those reasons, customers prefer to choose our location. We also want to contribute to local society as well as our tenants, benefiting all stakeholders in the long term.

• Q:

  What are your customers’ main concerns when considering investing with you?

• A:

  This is one of the exciting things for our sales teams because it depends so much on the individual customer and we see so many nationalities and industries. First would be security, second convenience of factory operation including such things as logistics, proximity to the port, availability of labor and of course the utilities we provide that make it easy for customers to operate factories.

• Q:

  How do you plan for the demands of the industries of the future?

• A:

  The world is changing quickly and new technology is coming up. Take data centres. You just focus on tier 3 and there’s going to be tier 4. Or even a more drastic change like a data centre for AI with different specifications. We have to prepare for all this in advance because infrastructure development can’t be completed in just a few months. It can take several years for water source management, or even five years to develop power plants and there’s the question of sustainability and renewable energy to consider. We need to monitor the demands of customers and future customers. We must have a mindset of flexibility and adapt to the new wave. Our name, Amata, means eternal. So we have to be here forever. We have to develop the Eternal City.

• Q:

  What are the most notable changes you have observed in the 16 years since you joined Amata?

• A:

  Back then, Amata Chonburi was already one of the biggest industrial parks in Southeast Asia. But it has since grown by two-thirds again. Now, we have five projects totaling 1,300 factories in Chonburi and Rayong provinces in Thailand. In Vietnam, where I worked for seven years and headed sales and marketing, we have gone from one industrial park to three and are now one of the leading companies operating in all the main economic regions of the country, north and south.

• Q:

  What about the nationalities of your customers?

• A:

  The majority of foreign investors when I joined were Japanese. But now the trend has changed. Recently we are getting more companies from the Chinese mainland especially since the U.S.-China trade war and Covid lockdowns motivated them to find a production base outside China. But it’s not just the trade war that attracts foreign direct investment to Amata. In our long-term vision, the future for manufacturers is here. Southeast Asia is very attractive both as a market and a place to export from to places such as North America. The demand will keep coming. Thailand is neutral – it doesn’t have conflict with any other country. Vietnam is also now attracting numerous foreign direct investments, especially the general manufacturing sector.

• Q:

  It’s a case of investors reverting to the “China plus one” investment strategy?

• A:

  We have been using the term “China Plus one” for 30 years, but back then the meaning was different. A foreign company such as Japan would choose China first, then another country as a second base. Now Chinese companies are themselves looking for another base outside China. It’s a bit different and a surprise. This is the FDI trend for Southeast Asian countries.

• Q:

  Amata Corp. began with one small block of land outside Bangkok. Tell us about the importance of your expansion beyond Thailand.

• A:

  A long time ago, Thailand was the most attractive country in the region for foreign direct investment. Then 30 years ago, Vietnam opened to foreign companies and we jumped in. We were a pioneer foreign industrial park developer in Vietnam. Now we are developing another location as a pioneer, northern Laos.