Image credit- medgadget.com
Under its Thailand 4.0 vision, Thailand plans to leverage on its reputation and excellence in medical services and medical devices and strengthen its position as the regional medical hub. To promote medical robotics, Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) has offered a wide range of investment promotion incentives including the medical robots.
Investment incentives vary because medical robotics is related to three targeted activities – manufacture of automation machinery/equipment with engineering design, assembling of robots or automation equipment/parts, and manufacture of high-risk or high-technology medical devices.
The maximum corporate income tax (CIT) exemption is 8 years for both manufacture of automation machinery/equipment with engineering design, and the manufacture of high-risk or high-technology medical devices. However, the CIT exemption for the assembling of robots or automation equipment/parts is 5 years.
According to BOI, surgery-assist robots, therapeutic robots, patient care robots and the like are considered as medical devices because they have clear medical treatment functions.
Apart from BOI, many public and private organizations have been working closely together to drive medical innovation. The Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Public Health and Ministry of Education have jointly set up a committee with a key responsibility to promote medical and health related innovations.
