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Department. The customs departments are used to find the value of vehicles export to ASEAN, CLMV and Japan market from year 2001 to 2010. Statistics from the customs departments are shown in million of baht instead of number of vehicles like what statistics from Thai Automotive Industry Association gives. Finally the last main source of data used in this paper is Bank of Thailand (BOT) and Board of Investment (BOI). FDI from Japan, USA and Korea are collected since year 1970 to present time.

Chapter 4: Overview of Automotive Industry

Automotive industry in Thailand started in year 1961with only 525 cars were produced and domestic sales were 6860 cars. In year 2010, more than 1.6 million cars were produced and more than 800,000 cars were sold domestically (Thai Automotive Industry Association). Automotive industry can divide its product into 2 main groups that are passenger and commercial cars.

Passenger cars are divided into 6 groups according to engine size.

Engine between 1,201 – 1500 cc

Engine between 1,501 – 1,800cc

Engine between 1,801 – 2,000 cc

Engine between 2,001 – 2,500cc

Engine between 2,501 – 3,000 cc

Engine more than 3,000cc

Commercial cars are divided into categories below

Van Micro Buses

Buses

Picks Up less than 1 ton

1 ton Picks Up

Trucks between (5 tons – 10 tons)

Trucks more than 10 tons

There are only 14 producers producing both passenger cars and commercial cars in Thai automotive industry and only 9 of them are producing passenger cars.

Chapter 5: Domestic Market.

Thailand has strong domestic and international automotive markets which are proved by number of domestic productions, number of domestic sales and number of cars exported. In year 2010, Thailand produced more than 1.6 million cars and this rank Thailand as 13th place in automobile production in the world. In this chapter, only domestic market will be discussed.

Productions of automobiles started in year 1961 with only 525 cars were produced by 4 pioneers.

Thai Motor Industry Co., Ltd.,

Kannasoot Co., Ltd.,

Siam Khonlakarn and Nissan Co., Ltd.,

Thonburi Car Assembly

Thai Motor Industry Co., Ltd., was the first assembly plant in Thailand. The company is supported by Anglo-Thai Motors Co., Ltd., which is Ford distributor in Thailand. Products of the company were Anglia, Ford tractor and Consul 105, Ford truck. The second company to establish a plant in Thailand is called Kannasoot General Assembly which is FIAT distributor. Siam Khonlakarn and Nissan Co., Ltd., was the third company to establish a plant and is the first Japanese automobile brand to establish a plant in Thailand. However the company was entirely operated by Thai people. The company is the distributor of Datsun and Nissan. Thonburi Car Assembly which is the distributor of Mercedes-Benz and truck manufacture was the forth company to start production in the country. These four companies are able to serve only 7.65% of domestic demands. The success of domestic production was due to announcement of support for domestic car assembly by government in year 1960. Before 1960, there was only one tax rate on imported Co