Japan's Mazda Motor will invest an additional 5 billion baht ($150 million) to produce compact electric SUVs in Thailand, the Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI) said in a statement on Thursday.

The investment plan was announced as Mazda President and CEO Masahiro Moro met with Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra in Bangkok.

Mazda aims to make Thailand a manufacturing hub for its compact electric SUV products, with a target capacity of 100,000 units per year, which will be sold locally and exported to Japan and Southeast Asia.

Having been in the Thai automotive market for more than 70 years, Mazda has two manufacturing plants in the country, producing passenger cars and commercial vehicles for domestic and export sales, as well as engines and automatic transmission systems.

The BOI announced last month that the value of applications for investment promotion in 2024 soared 35% to 1.14 trillion baht ($33 billion).

This is the highest level since 2014, the agency said, with large foreign direct investment (FDI) projects mainly in data centers, cloud services, and semiconductor and advanced electronics manufacturing.