Toshiba builds new, double-scale air-conditioner plant in Thailand

BANGKOK, May 21 (TNA) - Toshiba Carrier (Thailand) Co, announced a new project Monday to build the Japanese based company's second air-conditioner plant on an area of 19,100 square meters, twice the size of its first factory. Akio Osaka, President of Toshiba Carrier (Thailand) Co., said that the new facility will be constructed at the Bangkadi Industrial Park in Bangkok's suburban Pathum Thani province, where the company's first air-conditioner plant stands and started the production 23 years ago. The decision apparently shows Toshiba’s confidence in its investment in Thailand and its intention to serve growing demand of local customers. The new Toshiba plant will produce commercial air-conditioners and variable-refrigerant-flow (VRF) air-conditioners, starting from February 2013 for exports to 55 countries in six continents. Osaka revealed that the new Toshiba plant is estimated at 2 billion baht, making it become the company's largest air-conditioner production base, and that the new project was planned before Thailand's flooding crisis late last year and his firm has not called off the project, under which 97 per cent of its products will be exported, as Toshiba is confident in flood-prevention systems in Thailand. Meanwhile, Kobkan Watanawarangkun, Chairperson of the Toshiba Thailand Group Board and the Bangkadi Industrial Park, acknowledged that Toshiba has kept expanding its investment in Thailand, as the management of the Bangkadi Industrial Park has restored international investors’ confidence by building a dyke with its five meters high above the mean sea level and to be further elevated by one more meter within February 2013, and that the dyke, which has been 35 per cent complete so far, was set to be finished by August 2012. Kobkan told reporters that the flood prevention dyke at the Bangkadi Industrial Park will be of a double-wall system with soil in the middle; so, it can withstand the biggest amount of rainwater in 70 years, and that there will also be road access to give quick maintenance to the whole dyke.