Major trading house Sojitz Corp. and Thai conglomerate Saha Group have joined hands to attract tenants to industrial parks in Thailand ahead of anticipated plant relocations prompted by the U.S.-China trade war.
The trader's Thai arm, Sojitz (Thailand) Co., has agreed with Saha Pathana Inter-Holding Public Co. to become a sales agent for Saha's four industrial parks, Sojitz said Friday.
The Thai conglomerate is ramping up business in fields other than its core consumer goods to diversify risk.
Sojitz said it has run industrial parks in India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Sojitz will draw mainly Japanese tenants to the parks. They are located in Sriracha in Chonburi Province, southeast of Bangkok; Kabinburi in Prachinburi Province, east of the capital; Lamphun in the northern province of Lamphun near Chiang Mai; and Mae Sot in the western province of Tak.
"Japanese firms would account for 80 percent of our sales," Shinichi Sakata, president of the Sojitz Thai unit, said at a signing ceremony in Bangkok on Friday.
Sojitz can offer appropriate locations for potential tenants in line with their business fields — Sriracha for plastics and chemicals, Kabinburi for automobiles, Lamphun for electronics and Mae Sot for textiles — as each location has a unique industrial cluster, Sakata said.
Sojitz and Saha Pathana, the Thai group's corporate arm, have also signed a memorandum on developing industrial parks and on cooperation in other businesses to enhance partnerships, the firms said.