Tax, loan, funding projects to boost local software developers

When the new information and communications technology (ICT) minister takes office, he or she will find that the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) has already begun preparing the industry to support the ICT policies of the incoming government.

The agency has made new moves to promote the local software industry and better equip it to deal with the new government's policies of spreading ICT literacy and providing information technology to improve the quality of life of Thai people.

Sipa's acting president, Niracharapa Tongdhamachart said the agency was awaiting Board of Investment approval of a plan under which local software businesses with registered capital of Bt500,000 to Bt1 million would qualify for tax exemption for eight years. The agency expects an official announced of the plan before the end of this year.

Meanwhile, Sipa is also cooperating with the SME Bank to provide soft loans to local software companies or to general businesses that want to either use locally-developed software or hire local software companies to develop or customise software to support their operations. The SME Bank will provide loans of between Bt50,000 and Bt500,000 for each local software company or general business that seeks to support their business in this way. The bank has given the soft-loan project a budget of about Bt500 million, to provide loans with terms between one and seven years.

"I think that the tax exemption and soft loan projects will help local software companies to stop worrying about investment or lack of funds to develop products such as digital content and software solutions, and this will create competitiveness in the market," Niracharapa said.

She said Sipa was also planning to provide funding support to 84 local software projects to mark the 84th birthday of His Majesty the King. More than 600 software projects have applied to be one of the 84. Funding will range from Bt500,000 to Bt5 million, depending on the level of the software business involved.

In addition, the agency will also develop the Sipa's Mall website as an online catalogue for local digital content, multimedia and animation companies that want to promote their products and services. Listing will be free of charge.

A member of Sipa's executive board, Sanpat Sopon, said the local software industry had now captured a 10-per-cent share of the market, and this share was expected to grow to 20 per cent in the near future because more businesses were using local software.

Local developers have the ability to customise software or develop specific applications to support various local industries, such as tourism, restaurants and hotels, he said.

"We are also trying to enhance local software companies' share of the market by matchmaking between businesses and developers, so that local software engineers will able to develop and customise software to support business demand. This will help the local industry penetrate the market," Sanpat said.

He said Sipa was also negotiating with more than 20 Thai universities in an effort to produce about 1,000 software-development experts in the fields of mobile applications and digital content who can be hired via the universities to develop customised software to support the industry. Among the institutions are Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai and Walailak universities.