Thailand’s attractiveness as a profitable place to do business has risen significantly according to the annual Baseline Profitability Index, published by Foreign Policy Magazine, although it still ranked well behind some of its main Southeast Asian counterparts.
The kingdom was ranked in 38th place this year of the 110 featured countries – up from 57th place just 12 months ago.
The Index uses three groups of factors it says will affect the ultimate success of a foreign investment.
These are how much an asset’s value grows, the preservation of that value while the asset is owned, and the ease of bringing home the proceeds from selling the asset.
Each of these groups of factors requires a different kind of assessment. It’s not enough to worry only about rates of return, corruption, political stability, investor protection, or exchange rates alone.
The BPI combines these factors into a summary statistic that conveys a country’s basic attractiveness for investment. Thailand’s BPI for 2015 was scored at 1.07.
The top three countries leading the way for business profitability in 2015, according to this report, were India (1.32), Qatar (1.28) and Botswana (1.27). Leading the way for Southeast Asia was Singapore in fourth place with a BPI of 1.22.
Malaysia and Indonesia featured above Thailand in the rankings.
Report author Daniel Altman wrote: “It’s a great time to be an international investor.
“Most countries crippled by the global financial crisis now have their banking systems and fiscal balances under control, and demand for goods and services is returning almost everywhere.
“And with more economies than ever integrated into global markets, investors have their pick of destinations.”
This story was written by Andrew Batt, Group Editor of Dot Property Group. Send your news, views, press releases and comments to him at andrew.batt@dotproperty.co.th.
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