Cabinet Approves Development Projects to Cope with Economic and Tourism Expansion in the South

(25/10/2012)

A number of development projects have won Cabinet approval to cope with economic expansion and increasing tourist arrivals in four southern provinces along the Gulf of Thailand. Among these projects, 27 worth 517 million baht can be implemented immediately, while another 96 projects worth 40.2 billion baht will begin after feasibility studies are conducted by related agencies. The projects will be carried out in Chumphon, Surat Thani, Phatthalung, and Nakhon Si Thammarat. They were approved during the mobile Cabinet meeting on Samui Island in Surat Thani province on 21-22 October 2012. The Cabinet also held a meeting with the Regional Joint Public/Private Sector Consultative Committee, which submitted many proposals to the Cabinet for consideration. Concerning the proposal on the promotion of cash crops in the four provinces, the Cabinet assigned the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives to study details and suitability for setting up a specialized institute to conduct research and development of oil palm on a full-cycle basis. The study will also cover incentives for investors and the possibility of developing the oil palm processing industry. Regarding tourism promotion, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports was assigned to look into tourism development of the cluster of the “amazing two-sea project,” which consists of 12 provinces, namely Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phang-nga, Phuket, Krabi, Trang, Satun, Phatthalung, Songkhla, Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat. The project should be submitted to the National Tourism Policy Committee to declare these provinces a tourism development zone. The Cabinet told the Ministry of Public Health to work with the Ministry of Education in promoting medical tourism in the Upper South. This will also include the construction of a new hospital in Surat Thani, the establishment of a medical center in Nakhon Si Thammarat, and the setting up of a high-level medical institute at Prince of Songkla University in the Upper South. As for transportation links and logistics development, the Ministry of Transport was instructed to accelerate the maintenance of highways damaged by severe floods in 2011, while the Department of Highways will prioritize its projects to expand roads in the southern provinces along the Gulf of Thailand into four traffic lanes. The Ministry of Transport will also conduct studies on the construction of sea ports in Pak Phanang district of Nakhon Si Thammarat and Don Sak district of Surat Thani. A product distribution center will also be set up in Thung Song district of Nakhon Si Thammarat to accommodate logistics development of the countries under the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) subregional cooperation. The project, worth 832 million baht, will help reduce transportation costs and energy use, while enhancing the competitiveness of the agricultural and industrial sectors of Thailand and the IMT-GT subregion.