Ford Motor Co has set up a new company in Thailand to function as its regional operating headquarters and take advantage of Thailand's tax incentives under terms set out by the Thai Board of Investment (BoI).

Ford Services Thailand Co (FST), which began operations early last month, provides support to Ford Asian Operations as well as Asia-Pacific marketing, sales and service and Ford Credit units.

Areas covered include finance, business development, human resource management, manufacturing support and planning, materials planning, logistics and purchasing.

The choice of Thailand as the base for our Asian regional office is obvious. Thailand has played an important role as the regional automotive hub for Asia, particularly in that Thailand has demonstrated strong leadership in implementing a Asian Free Trade Area, allowing for exporting fully assembled vehicles at preferential tariffs, said Michael McCarney, president of Ford Asian Operations in Thailand.

Ford currently has extensive BoI-approved investments in Thailand which benefit from tax privileges and the right to hire foreign specialists from outside Thailand.

Ford announced in the month October plans to invest an additional 21 billion baht in its joint venture with Mazda, AutoAlliance Thailand, a vehicle manufacturing plant in Rayong. This new investment will be spread out over the next several years to support new vehicle programs as well as expand local automotive production capacity in Thailand.