Thailand Ties Data Centre Tax Breaks to Local Talent: At Least Half of Executive and Professional Roles to Be Held by Thais Within Three Years
BANGKOK — Thailand's Board of Investment (BOI) has attached a local-talent condition to data centre tax incentives: projects using corporate income tax exemptions must have Thai nationals in at least 50 percent of executive and professional positions within three years. BOI Secretary General Narit Therdsteerasukdi announced the measures after a meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas, and discussed them at the Nation Forum 2027 on October 20.
The holidays themselves are tiered by location and efficiency: data centres in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) receive three to five years of corporate income tax exemption, compared with five to eight years outside it, with longer terms for high-efficiency projects (PUE of no more than 1.3). Before using the exemptions, projects must also submit and implement Thai workforce development and domestic supply-chain plans.
Narit said the BOI's approved portfolio stands at 38 data centre projects worth 458 billion baht, with combined IT load of 2,066 megawatts. Thailand needs to connect data centres with domestic manufacturing, workforce development, SI models and useful applications, he told the forum, rather than only hosting buildings full of computers.
The same package listed four data centre investments totalling about 98.2 billion baht: Telehouse (Thailand), part of Japan's KDDI, at 7.55 billion baht; Vistas Technology, linked to China's ZDATA Technologies, at 9.09 billion baht; NextGen, a subsidiary of Dubai's DAMAC Digital, at 26.7 billion baht; and Zenith Data Center at 54.9 billion baht, in Bangkok, Chonburi and Pathum Thani.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 曼谷湄南河夜景。图片：© Swaminathan / CC BY 2.0，Wikimedia Commons
