Thailand is wooing struggling automotive companies in Australia to move their operations to the former. Visiting Thai Deputy Secretary General Duangjai Asawacintachit, who heads the Board of Investment, said Thailand's solid economic growth and free trade links to other Asian nations offered wide opportunities for Aussie firms.

Her invitation came at a time that Australia is crafting new policies for the country to ride on the Asian century.

She attributed the strong Thai automotive sector, which is Australia's biggest customer, to the bilateral free-trade agreement between Canberra and Bangkok.

In 2011, can makers in Thailand manufactured 1.5 million cars, higher than the production by Australian vehicle manufacturers which leaves a lot of room for growth and demand for automotive parts and companies.

Last week the Australian government entered into a 10-year $1-billion co-investment deal with Holden for the carmaker to retain its manufacturing activity in Australia at least until 2022. The agreement provides for $275 million taxpayer subsidies and extra funds to push component makers into larger international markets. The move aims to protect the 55,500 jobs in the automotive industry which supports 200,000 other jobs.

It is also expected to result in a new model being added to Holden's Elizabeth production line in South Australia.

The assistance is part of the Australian government's response to a statement from General Motors, which owns Holden, that it has no commitment to continue building cars in Australia beyond the lifecycle of the current Commodore model slated to run only until 2015-16, if the firm will not receive any assistance from the government.

The government, however, has expressed concern that the component sector is too dependent on Holden, Ford and Toyota, and wants manufacturers to secure a larger share of the international market. To achieve that, it put in place the $24.5 million Automotive New Markets Initiative to promote access to overseas supply chains.

Ms Duangjai said that due to the spread of free trade agreements across Asia, firms operating or based in Thailand enjoy an open door to the booming Asian economy. Setting up operations in Thailand would provide them access to those markets.