By Dave Sebastian

The Thailand Board of Investment said it has approved incentives to encourage companies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, promote the production of electric vehicles, mitigate Covid-19 effects and support local vaccine development.

The board, which operates under the prime minister's office, also said it has approved the application of Glow Energy PCL, a power and utility company in Thailand, to invest about 6 billion baht ($184.1 million) in a cogeneration power to expand production of electricity and steam.

The board said the measures would include support to local organizations involved in the development of sustainable agricultural activities like low-methane rice farming. It would offer three-year tax holidays to investments in machinery upgrades aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, it said.

The board said investments in cold-storage facilities and cold-storage transport operations using natural refrigerants would get three-year corporate income-tax exemptions. It would grant petrochemical production facilities implementing carbon-capture utilization and storage technologies eight-year corporate income-tax exemptions.

Tax incentives being offered related to the promotion of electric bicycles that have experienced rapid market growth in the past few years include at least three years of corporate income-tax exemption, the board said.

The board said it approved a measure to allow companies that still enjoy tax holidays to apply for additional tax incentives if they provide financial support to vaccine or medicine research and development projects run by public educational institutions, research institutes and government agencies. Companies would get another one to three years of corporate income-tax exemption and an increase in their corporate income-tax-exemption ceiling equal to the amount of their contribution of their support is worth at least 1% of total sales in the first three years, or at least 200 million baht, the board said.

Write to Dave Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

09-07-21 0804ET