Bangkok: The FTI points out loopholes in Thai law that allow zero-dollar factories to spread severely, causing severe negative impacts on the industrial sector. It is proposing stricter licensing and cracking down on nominees.

According to Thai News Agency, Mom Luang Pikthong Thongyai, Vice Chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), revealed the results of the 45th FTI CEO Poll in May 2025 under the topic ‘How much do zero-dollar factories affect Thai industry?’ It was found that the influx of foreign capital to operate factories that do not create economic benefits for the area, or so-called zero-dollar factories, was viewed by most FTI executives as having a significant negative impact on the Thai industrial sector, especially in terms of avoiding or negligently complying with the law, such as illegally operating businesses, producing substandard products, illegally entering to work, and illegally importing.

The FTI believes that the cause of the zero-dollar factory problem in Thailand is due to loopholes in Thai laws, as well as the impact of the trade war, which has accelerated the relocation of production bases to claim Thai export rights to avoid the country of origin. The FTI executives therefore proposed that the government strictly enforce factory license issuance and integrate proactive inspections to suppress wrongdoing, the use of disguised businesses by foreigners or nominees, and the use of mule accounts through data linkage and development of a system to track and analyze the behavior of juristic persons that are considered nominees, such as tax payments, employment, imports and exports, electricity usage, etc.

In addition, the FTI executives also praised the Ministry of Industry’s dedication to managing non-compliant and zero-dollar factories. Most of them gave a ‘high’ level of satisfaction with the work of the Sudsoi Team, which is considered a good and effective model for solving the current zero-dollar factory problem.