The Industry Ministry is pushing ahead with plans to promote key industries, including food processing and electric vehicles (EVs), to strengthen manufacturing and follow the bio-, circular and green (BCG) economic model.
BCG, which is aimed at encouraging manufacturers to adopt techniques that can add value to products and have no or minimal impact on the environment, is the government's national agenda.
In the agricultural sector, authorities want to help farmers develop their farming in order to add value to their products, said Siripen Kiatfuengfoo, deputy director-general of the Office of Industrial Economics (OIE).
The assistance gets along with the Institute for Agro-Based Industries, which said earlier farmers can use knowledge as a springboard to modernise their farming and supply their products to factories for development as future food.
To add value to agricultural produce, farmers are being encouraged to develop it into future food, which includes organic farm products and alternative proteins that are meat substitutes, according to the institute.
The OIE said officials will continue to promote the food processing industry so that Thailand will rank among top 10 food exporters in the world.
Mrs Siripen said the value of processed food exports in the first half stood at 600 billion baht. She expects the value to soar to 1.3 trillion baht at the end of this year.
In the fledging EV industry, the government remains firm in its goal to make Thailand an EV hub in Asean.
Earlier in February, the cabinet approved a package of incentives including tax cuts and subsidies to promote EV consumption and production between 2022-2023.
Last March the National EV Policy Committee announced it wanted EVs to constitute 50% of locally made vehicles by 2030, part of an ambitious plan to make Thailand a regional EV production centre.
Mrs Siripen said officials also focus on the development of smart electronics manufacturing with an aim to have this industry generate 1.6 trillion baht in export value in 2027.
