# Amata expands industrial park empire across Thailand, Vietnam and Laos as manufacturers diversify from China > Founded in 1989, Amata Corporation now hosts more than 1,500 factories across a dozen sites, with its newest push into Laos betting on cheap hydropower and a 'China plus one' wave of relocating manufacturers. - Source: Pacific Post - Canonical URL: https://pacificpost.co.uk/article/amata-industrial-parks-thailand-vietnam-laos - Author: Pacific Post Staff - Section: Economy - Published: 2026-10-17T21:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-17T21:00:00.000Z - Tags: Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, manufacturing, supply chains --- Amata Corporation, the Thai industrial park developer founded by Vikrom Kromadit, has built one of Southeast Asia's largest footprints for relocating manufacturers, now hosting more than 1,500 factories across roughly 700 square kilometers of land spanning 12 locations in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. The company's first site, Amata City Chon Buri, opened in Thailand in 1989, the same period Kromadit founded Amata after running an import-export business. It expanded into Vietnam the following year, eventually launching Amata City Bien Hoa in Dong Nai province in 1994, and has more recently pushed into Laos, where it opened Amata City Namor in 2022, a 31.5 square kilometer development near the China-Laos Railway that the company envisions eventually growing to 200 square kilometers. The expansion rides two overlapping trends: manufacturers pursuing a so called China plus one strategy to diversify production away from China, and pressure from US tariffs on Chinese-origin goods, both of which have pushed companies to look for new manufacturing bases across Southeast Asia. Laos offers a particular advantage on the energy side, exporting roughly 80 percent of its electricity output and drawing on more than 80 hydroelectric plants with upwards of 12 gigawatts of capacity, making cheap, reliable power a selling point for energy-intensive tenants. Amata's developments go well beyond factory floors. Its parks are built as integrated industrial cities, combining manufacturing facilities with housing, schools, hospitals, shopping centers and technical training institutes, with a university also planned for future development. That model has helped the company retain large manufacturing tenants over long stretches as they put down roots well beyond a single production line. Not every expansion has gone smoothly. Amata made a brief push into Myanmar in 2019, but halted those plans following the military coup in 2021, a reminder that the same regional diversification drawing manufacturers to Southeast Asia also carries political risk that can derail individual projects even as the broader trend continues. --- Originally published by Pacific Post. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://pacificpost.co.uk/article/amata-industrial-parks-thailand-vietnam-laos.