Investment-promotion offices across ASEAN will team up to stage roadshows in all 10 member countries next year in a bid to attract foreign direct investment into the region.

Since the ASEAN Free Trade Area will be implemented at the beginning of the year, the offices prefer to attract foreign investment from outside the region rather than focus only on intra-ASEAN investment, which is expected to increase automatically in line with a surge in intra-regional trade.

"Most countries in ASEAN act as attractive destinations to lure foreign investment rather than being high-potential investors, because of their low financial status," said Ajarin Pattanapanchai, deputy secretary-general of Thailand's Board of Investment.

The integration of ASEAN members will definitely offer a better opportunity for investors, thanks to the size of the market and plentiful natural resources. Even in the current financial crisis, FDI flowing into ASEAN has dropped at a lower rate than the global FDI flow, she said.

However, the imbalance between the infrastructures of each country is a major obstacle in the way of boosting the region's investment. Therefore, she said, six countries planned to be consultants for the CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Vietnam) countries to improve their infrastructure and revise investment laws and regulations.

Ajarin said Thailand would not gain more investment from other ASEAN countries despite the effectiveness of the Asian Comprehensive Investment Agreement.

On the contrary, the ACIA will enable the other member states to expand investment in the region more easily.

She said that not only big companies like Charoen Pokphand and Siam Cement Group but also small and medium-sized companies such as Premier Construction, Betagro and Lampang Food Product had expanded their investment in the region.

She added that the FDI portion from ASEAN investors had increased continuously over the past two years, thanks to Singaporean investors' expansion in service and marine transportation and Malaysian's investment in rubber and agricultural businesses.

However, the global financial crisis has reduced the level of FDI from ASEAN to Bt15.7 billion in the first nine months of the year from Bt40 billion in the same period last year. Of the FDI from ASEAN members, Bt11.4 billion was from Singapore and Bt7.5 billion from Malaysia.

However, she is confident that FDI from ASEAN will rise next year thanks to the recovery of the global economy and Thailand's strong potential in many industries such as services, automotive, agriculture and electronics.