According to foreign media reports, a Thai government official revealed that the country is in talks with China's Ningde Times and other battery manufacturers to build battery production facilities in Thailand. Thailand, the second largest economy in Southeast Asia, hopes to boost the adoption and production of electric vehicles by offering incentives such as tax breaks and subsidies to become a regional hub for electric vehicle production and a key player in the global electric vehicle supply chain outside of China.

"We are in talks with many companies, not only Ningde Times but many others in the battery industry," said Naritat Steerasukdi, secretary general of the Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI). "We want to attract battery manufacturers to set up factories in Thailand, which is one of our goals." Narit didn't give details and it wasn't clear how far the talks had progressed.

Ningde Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last year, CatL announced a strategic partnership with ARUNPLUS, a subsidiary of Thai energy giant PTTPcl, to "explore potential cooperation and development opportunities in battery-related businesses in the region." ARUNPLUS is part of PTT's joint venture with Foxconn, which is building a plant with the goal of producing electric vehicles in Thailand as early as 2024.

Thailand is the world's 10th largest car manufacturer, with production dominated by Japanese carmakers including Toyota and Isuzu. According to a government plan, Thailand aims to convert 30 percent of its annual capacity of 2.5 million vehicles to electric vehicles by 2030.

Over the past few years, Thailand has attracted investment from a number of electric vehicle companies, including Chinese automakers such as Great Wall Motor and BYD. In addition, Thailand wants to attract electric vehicle suppliers, including local production of key components such as batteries and charging points. Narit revealed that the Thai government aims to directly support and subsidize large battery production facilities, with priority given to those with a capacity of more than 8 gigawatt hours (GWh), which is large enough to power more than 106,000 electric vehicles equipped with 75 KWH batteries.

Catl is the world's dominant battery supplier with 37% of the global market share. The company has been expanding rapidly overseas and has contracts with Ford Motor Co, Honda Motor Co and BMW, among others. Its batteries also power Volkswagen's I.D series and Tesla cars made in China.

Currently, the company has 13 battery production centers, including 11 in China, one in Hungary and one in Germany, where its 14GWh plant near Erfurt, Germany, began ramping up production this year. However, the Ningde era has no production facilities in Southeast Asia.