Thailand approves Western Digital’s 23.5 billion baht investment project

THAILAND has approved Western Digital’s 23.5 billion baht (S$899 million) project to expand hard disk production in the country, Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) said on Monday (Aug 26), as cloud technology and data centre demand grows.

The investment would boost the Thai economy by adding exports worth 200 billion baht per year and creating an extra 10,000 jobs, the BOI added.

Western Digital’s Thai facility currently employs 28,000 people in the country, where some 80 per cent of the world’s hard disks are made, according to the BOI.

Thailand has approved 82.6 billion worth of investments in the hard disk industry in the decade. Last year, rival hard disk maker Seagate made an expansion with a 16 billion baht investment.

South-east Asia’s second-largest economy expects overall investment applications to reach 800 billion baht for 2024.