Thailand’s investment body announced the investment target of 720 billion baht (22.5 billion U.S. dollars) for 2018 after closing the year of 2017 with an investment growth of 22 percent from 2016.

The total investment application value of 2017 was 641.978 billion baht (20.061 billion U.S. dollars), up 22 percent from the previous year and considerably higher than the initial 600-billion-baht (18.750-billion-U.S. dollar) target for 2017, said Duangjai Asawachintachit, secretary general of the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI).

“BOI has experienced a 5-10 percent increase in investment application value every year,” said Duangjia, who is confident in hitting the 2018 target which will be a growth of 12 percent from 2017.

The new target number was set after a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, who shared the government’s investment promotion policy with BOI’s executives.

“We want BOI to continue to give more weight to agriculture, food, digital, logistics, education, tourism, and services industries in 2018 because they are vital to economic growth,” said the deputy premier.

“This will cover all value chains related to agricultural activities and tourism services.” he said.

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