Perks of the Digital Park include tax breaks for companies and income tax exemptions for “talented people” and returning expatriates

Thailand’s Digital Economy and Society Minister Dr. Pichet Durongkaveroj announced on Tuesday that the government is going to build the Digital Park Thailand mega project, Disruptive Asia reported.

Announced during his keynote address the the AIS Visions 2017 event, the minister stated that the mega project will be located on a 240-acre plot of land currently owned by CAT Telecom in Sri-Racha, near the eastern seaboard industrial zone.

Dr. Durongkaveroj said that the Digital Park will “bring together government, academia and industry to serve the needs of the world.” It is going to work on IoT research, aviation collaboration, e-commerce, e-payments, encryption technologies and all sorts of hardware and software solutions, as well as the nearby automotive industry.

Some of the perks of setting up businesses in the Digital Park includes tax breaks for companies as well as income tax exemptions for “talented people” and returning expatriates.

Also Read: Meet the 8 CEOs steering through the Thailand startup ecosystem

For investors, the minister also stated that he has talked to the Finance Ministry to waive income tax for “these talented innovators.” He is also calling for internet giants such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and YouTube to invest in Digital Park and make it their regional headquarters, promising to give them unlimited bandwidth and submarine cables to Europe and China’s One Belt, One Road project.

Despite having banned internet-based services such as motorbike taxi ride-sharing service last year, the Thailand government has been focussing heavily on building the country’s budding tech industry.

In December, it signed a Letter of Intent with Chinese internet giant Alibaba that will see the two parties cooperate on a range of initiatives to develop the country’s e-commerce.

The Thai government also had announced plans to give tax exemptions for tech companies when it set up a THB20 billion (US$570 million) of fund for local startups.

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